{"id":1555,"date":"2017-04-20T01:38:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T05:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2017-04-20T01:38:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T05:38:00","slug":"permutations-of-our-conceptions-of-technological-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/04\/20\/permutations-of-our-conceptions-of-technological-death\/","title":{"rendered":"permutations of our conceptions of technological death"},"content":{"rendered":"

The description of the state of the\u00a0E.T.\u00a0<\/em>cartridges which the author was researching is one of the many permutations of views that we hold regarding technology. Many of the works we have examined in class have portrayed technology as having a timeless element.\u00a0There Will Come Soft Rain\u00a0<\/em>captured this sentiment most poignantly, as it’s narrative portrayed a technological system running many years after humanity’s demise. However, this poem also flirts with the concept of technology’s death, in a much more gruesome way than E.T.<\/span><\/em>‘s burial was portrayed in the current reading. The polluted atmosphere of the Bradbury poem is common imagery held throughout almost all views on the death of technology. Where the house in\u00a0There Will Come Soft Rain<\/em> squirts green bile from itself as it attempts to smother a fire, I imagine much more toxic pollutants will leach from the reactive metals used in constructing game cartridges (and whatever else the article classifies as “eWaste”). What I am ultimately driving at with these two examples is that what we consider to be the death of technology, in whatever form that may take, is an incredibly damaging thing to the health of the earth, and it is important for that connotation to carry through in portrayals of technological death such as the\u00a0eWaste graveyard where the copies of\u00a0E.T.<\/em> were buried.<\/p>\n

In an ironic twist, the lifespan of E.T.<\/em> described by the article would have gone largely unknown if it were not for the “death” which the game experienced by having several thousands copies buried in a landfill. That spectacle turned a terrible Atari game into a cultural monolith, something gamers could point to as “the worst game ever made”.\u00a0\u00a0It’s persistence after death has cultural significance which some of us have studied through our last class project and deserves to be further related to other works we have studied.<\/p>\n

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The reality of technological death and “ewaste”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The description of the state of the\u00a0E.T.\u00a0cartridges which the author was researching is one of the many permutations of views that we hold regarding technology. Many of the works we have examined in class have portrayed technology as having a timeless element.\u00a0There Will Come Soft Rain\u00a0captured this sentiment most poignantly, as it’s narrative portrayed a … <\/p>\n

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