This was a forum held fourteen years ago and reported in the August 1995 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Participant Kevin Kelly frames the discussion here:
And then there is the unrecoverable context of the times in mid 1990s. This forum took place at a point when the web had just been born. The internet referred to here is text-based – no images, no sound, all ascii characters. Users watched as light text on dark screen scrolled up. Email accounts were uncommon. Very few computers were connected. They stood alone. No handhelds, virtually no cell phones. To get on the internet was a chore, and it was a very small place.
It’s fascinating that despite the discussing having occurred so long ago, the points raised by each participant remain so pertinent to today. I suppose that makes Kelly’s introduction not so much of a disclaimer of anachronism but a reminder of prescience.
A couple of funny examples of what a difference a decade can make, though, are:
BIRKERTS: I don’t have a computer. I work on a typewriter. I don’t do e-mail. It’s enough for me to deal with [printed] mail.
Well, Sven Birkerts blogs now.
KELLY: You can’t download it. That’s the whole point. You want to download it so that you can read it like a book. But that’s precisely what it can’t be. You want it to be data, but it’s experience. And it’s an experience that you have to have there. When you go on-line, you’re not going to have a book experience.
This may not be true anymore either. With mobile devices taking on a vast array of shapes and sizes (even Microsoft’s upcoming device takes the codex format we’ve all been wishing for in a digital device), we are experiencing the web in a much more “book-like” way. Also, print on demand is still a significant concept. Whether the Lulu.com’s of the web survive is beside the point- some people (myself included) still like to compile web content and engage with it in bookish ways.
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