For the Chronicles of connected intimacy of the Mardis du Luxembourg collective, Jean-Marc Goachet* and his 14-year-old daughter Analie have written a short story entitled : Digital reconstruction where, after an accident about which nothing is known, a man has lost the memory of his last 10 years.
- Jean-Marc, your character goes back 10 years: it's a real slap in the face, nothing is the same any more?
On the surface, the world hasn't changed that much, apart from a few details. Autolib terminals have been installed here and there, advertising hoardings have been converted to LEDs and public transport is packed with passengers glued to their screens. Gone are the days of flip phones, and it's not long before our character realises that something has changed. Phones are flatter, bigger, brighter, with no visible buttons. Smartphones have arrived on the scene. These objects alone crystallise the changeover to a new era. Some are even talking about a new industrial revolution. In the space of 10 years, the changes brought about by the Internet have spread through usage, the very vehicles of transformation. From Internet 1.0, which limited Internet users to consulting information online, we have moved on to Web 2.0, marked by the conversation and expression of Internet users, then to Web 3.0, marked by the exploitation and enhancement of data by and thanks to algorithms, and finally, for the time being, to Web 4.0, the web of the transformation of businesses, and even of society as a whole, this probable industrial revolution. All these milestones have been reached in the space of 10 years, which is quite a short time by human standards. It's an evolution in which everyone has tried to decipher the instructions for use, while at the same time biting off more than they can chew. From simple consumer, the individual has become commentator, notator, producer.... and has thus spread across the web without always realising it. The sheet that our amnesiac lifts over 10 years of forgotten life will reveal a multi-faceted treasure to be explored with care.
- You wrote this story with 4 hands: why this choice?
For Analie: When my father shared his first version with us, I didn't agree with his vision of the story. So he suggested I go over the storyline with him. We're not from the same generation, so we use the Internet differently. My father envisaged the character rebuilding himself thanks to everything he found about himself on the Internet. And I, that he would start a new life, because everything we put on the Internet is designed to give only a good image of us and not necessarily be true. So history would have shown that he would have rebuilt himself on facts that weren't necessarily true.
For JM: I wanted to involve Analie in this news story because digital is everyone's business, especially that of future generations who will have to live with it. Digital has the particularity of being the fruit of the uses we make of it. So we might as well take the opportunity to design it together.
- Analie, why did you agree, or choose, to take part in this short story?
It's an interesting subject. Reconstructing yourself entirely thanks to the Internet is not an easy choice. My father's generation discovered the Internet and used it in every possible way. They got used to it, evolved with it, used it and use it without restriction, without instructions.
My generation uses the Internet in a more precise way. We only show the perfect side of our lives, everything is planned and calculated so that on the Internet there are only things that show us to our best advantage. So choosing to rebuild your life without the Internet after suffering amnesia can help you start a new life.
- How does a 14-year-old girl see our world? Is it far from the one she hopes to live in one day?
Our world is the way we designed it, and I don't think it's the best. It's full of inequality, injustice, misunderstanding and cowardice. It's as if humans were created to fight and destroy each other. We have the impression that the colour of our skin makes us different from others, that our origins frighten us, that our morphology is repugnant. In short, that someone different from us is an alien. Some people don't understand that we are all human, all the same and all equal.
The world I'll live in later is simply the world I'll be left with. We are a generation being left with a very heavy burden.
But we have also helped to create a destructive weapon for people of my generation and those who will come after: social networks. We use them in the full knowledge of the consequences of our digital actions. Mocking, insulting or hurting someone on social networks has become as serious as a physical altercation.
The only flaw in this weapon is that what's on the Internet stays on the Internet.
- Are the new communicating and soon to be connected objects fascinating, or just a reality?
To Analie: I'm not really interested in the new communicating and soon to be connected objects, but I think they can and will make our lives easier. Inventions, innovations and technological developments mean that perhaps soon a chip could be embedded in us, giving us a telephone in our hand, an infinite source of information inside us, the ability to pay with our fingerprint.... But this will mean the end of our privacy and freedom of thought.
For JM: It's fascinating but not yet completely real. It's true that communicating objects are gradually becoming part of our daily lives. Connected to our phone, we obtain information sent by sensors: heart rate, body temperature, pace and rhythm of your walk... Everything that can be captured will be, and it's relatively easy. However, it is in the analysis and recommendations made possible by the processing of algorithms that connected objects will become a reality, providing real added value. Prediction, adjustment, projection and anticipation will be the differentiating factors for these objects that have become connected for better or worse.
* to exchange on twitter : @jmgoachet
