You got the touch, you got the power
10 July 2007
Sunflowers have been an important subject in art since they were first brought back from the Americas (sometime after Christopher Columbus rediscovered the Americas, which was quite late in art terms). Dozens of famous painters had painted sunflowers before, in the late 19th Century, Vincent van Gogh painted his famous series of still life sunflowers. People still paint sunflowers today, it is fun to paint sunflowers, they look good and have many layers of detail - a small child can paint a sunflower in one minute while van Gogh can take two years tying to paint them.
I was thinking a little more about web design for the long-tail, while a contact form, a guestbook or a blog comment, is not as beautiful as a painting, it is really nice to receive a message from a long lost acquaintance, and refreshing to receive a message from a person who you would have never met otherwise. It is the simple things that satisfy, human contact is far more exciting than any multi-million dollar Hollywood made experience.
One of the most famous works of religious art in the world is the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, which dominates the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The fresco depicts the moment before the culmination of God's work, the whole of creation is about to reach it's most the climatic moment, the birth of humanity.
Unlike many others, Michelangelo does not depict God as magician or pyrotechnician, who is about to let of a loud bang and clouds of smoke. Rather, the most celebrated part of the fresco is the centre where the arms of Adam and God are outreached and their fingers are about to touch. A simple caress will impart life from God to Adam.
This is one of the few works dealing with creation where humanity is an active participant; it is not only God reaching out, but Adam has to stretch out his arm, however weakly, to help bridge the distance between them. In this reaching out to each other, life is brought to the world. Even in these days when we all believe in evolution (whether random or guided by the Holy Spirit), the fresco still shows us the importance of personal contact, the power of reaching out to someone else.
All the technologies that have been successful over the last few years have been human-to-human touch. I never wanted the 2G content beamed down from my mobile phone company. However, text messaging from friend to friend is enormously fun despite (or because of) its low-tech, plain text, medium. Likewise in the 3G/smartphone era, I do not want video adverts from my mobile company's preferred media partner, I want to be able to access information from communities that I am interested in. I want to be able to read and leave comments on my friends' blogs, look at their photos, I want to be able to access the bus and train timetables so I can go see my friends. It is the simple things that satisfy, not the most high tech and difficult to use.
Is there any point in making a better contact form, a better RSS feed or a better blog? That is like asking whether it is worth painting sunflowers. Not everyone's painting of sunflowers will hang in the National gallery, but a young teenager's attempt might hang on their grandparents' wall for decades. Providing the means for people to reach out and touch each other is a beautiful thing.
1 Jordan says...
Sorry: tell me , not tellme (I'm spaniard) And http://zeth.me.uk/contact/ don't work
Posted at 8:54 a.m. on November 26, 2009