acausal lollipops / anti-smart technology

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Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner.

Every-day life is a causal trap. Every single day connected to cause and effect. Synchronicity concept defined by Carl Gustav Jung, famous swiss psychologist, explores an experience of two or more casually unrelated events, which we can connect together with great deal of meaning. Almost everyone has experienced this connection. All of sudden, the reality of every-day life feel different. At least for a brief moment. Beauty of these acausal events is that they don’t compete with causality. They simply exist within causality and sometimes appear and disappear quickly.
The idea of Acausal Lollipops is to pay attention to these events a little more. Imagine a small gadget with only one function. To detect and capture the moment of synchronicity event. Imagine a neural sensor calibrated in a way so it can detect the moment you connect diverse events that have happened to you in meaningful way. At that very moment the gadget triggers an action – it releases the sweet and precious content of the glass capsule – a 3d printed planet Earth lollipop (by VintageConfections). You can take a break of your daily routine, enjoy the lollipop and think about the world, space and all those invisible connections which define our lives.
This is my idea of anti-smart technology. Single-Event-Single-function gadget. Super inefficient gadget.
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Close encounters with technology and freedom at a perilously young age

The Origin Story

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This story is told from a passenger seat. The driver at the wheel has nothing to do with me anymore even though he used to be me or I used to be him. All those things in the story are true and this is how they exist in my memory today. It not that easy to recollect all those events but they are definitely worth the effort.

I grew up in a typical east block concrete ZTB housing projects, stretching from either side towards the horizon, where the sky met the western lands of Austria. Strong winds pushed the tears out of your eyes every time you walked through the vast urban voids. Humming landscape. Through the voids were scattered another objects, such as small supermarkets, patches of greenery and standardized MS-RP II school buildings. As kids we were able to realize the close proximity of completely different universe which was at the same time so distant and foreign to us. Cultural connections were possible though. Watching austrian TV was significant for kids growing up in that area during the 80-s. All we watched at the time was ORF Eins und Zwei. Contact with a new western TV culture, with its movies, news broadcasts and commercial ads promoting products which we had not seen in our stores, had an irreversible impact on our mindset. I remember watching Apocalypse Now late at night at the age of 10. A movie which is not an easy ride to go for even now with its complex layering and extreme length. Why did I watch it that time and did not fall asleep? I don’t know. All I remembered afterwards was a Doors song, napalm flames covering palm trees and the boat on a river. Read More »

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