THE INDUSTRIAL INFORMATION AGE

​

​

I’m adrift in the Age and occasionally muse playfully with the idea of making some kind of sense of it for myself. It’s an interesting age to be adrift in. Some optimistically call it the Information Age, an exhilirating step up from the Industrial Age. I’m an optimist myself but still, for  me, the gear shift has not been quite so definitive as that. For me, some new things have begun, but that’s not to say that all of the old things have ended. Yes, we have entered an information age, but that doesn’t mean we have left the Industrial Age behind. I would describe the current age as the Industrial Information Age, a transitional age where information flows more freely than ever before in recorded history, but the industrialisation of all aspects of our lives is also more rampant than ever. Education, entertainment, health care, art...you name it, it has been turned into an industry.

​

​

To be industrious, to work hard, to be productive, is not a negative thing in and of itself, but the Industrial Age wasn’t so named because people suddenly began to be those things - there is a side of industry that is as cold and hard, as depersonalised and inhumane as a long, tall, windowless brick wall. Those on the outside want to get in and those on the inside are trapped.