The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading.pdf

PETER LUNENFELD
THE SECRET WAR BETWEEN
DOWNLOADING AND UPLOADING
TALES OF THE COMPUTER AS CULTURE MACHINE

The computer, writes Peter Lunenfeld, is the twenty-first century's culture machine. It is a dream device, serving as the mode of production, the means of distribution, and the site of reception. We haven't quite achieved the flying cars and robot butlers of futurist fantasies, but we do have a machine that can function as a typewriter and a printing press, a paintbrush and a gallery, a piano and a radio, the mail as well as the mail carrier. But, warns Lunenfeld, we should temper our celebration with caution; we are engaged in a secret war between downloading and uploading--between passive consumption and active creation--and the outcome will shape our collective futures.

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