Theme:
Technophilia/Technophobia

Technology: Do we love it or hate it? Does it isolate us or bring us together? Does it make our lives easier or does it add layers of complications? Do we own our tools or do they own us? Can we live without our technology? Can it live without us? We shape the world through our technology but to what extent does our technology shape our worldviews?

This theme is a study of modern life that is very relevant to us as Burners. Modern technology is both a consumer product and a means to promote consumption. Yet it can also be used to create art and to connect us. Technology extremely enhances our creative abilities yet also enhances our destructive abilities. As we know from our experience with the fire arts, destructive technology can also result in positive beautiful things.

Burners are especially suited for examining our relationships with technology. We are some of the most technologically savvy people out there. We’ve used the tools of the Internet to connect with each other and build a community like no other. We are intimately familiar with creating new uses for technology and subverting it to our own fun purposes.

At InterFuse 2008, we will mock, celebrate, exaggerate, demonstrate, and use technology to create. Bring your fearful or hopeful vision of our technological present and future. All robots, cyborgs, couch potatoes, slaves to the machines, Luddites, interactive tutorials, genetically enhanced humans, virtual selves, icons, nuts & bolts, flotsam & jetsam etc. are welcome! You can take this theme in any direction! Unveil a new and enhanced IF08 Theme version 2.0. Come set up your office cubicle camp, post-apocalyptic scenario, personal billboard, or cyber-utopia. Form a techno cult or create a reality TV game that has gone horribly awry. Show off your inventions, bio-fueled art car, or invite people to add to your open source installations. Create recycled trash art, build a DNA sculpture, or assemble something else so engaging that people find themselves sitting around it for 36 hours straight sipping energy drinks.

Welcome to the Machine!

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"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

— Albert Einstein