The Art of Inventing Problems

Written October 20. 2003, at 23:32 GMT.

Jason Kottke tells a cute story of what happens when silly technology ends up in the hands of talented nerds: The nTag Sleep Attack.

I have this theory that "Art is the process of making somthing out of nothing". In Jason's story we have the nerds making art by taking stupid widgets and transforming them into something they thought was more interesting. So far so good - the theory seems to hold.

But then we have people like the inventors of nTags. These people seem to be mostly into inventing solutions to problems that don't exist - which leads to the inevitable question: "is that art?"

Look at, for example, the animated demonstration of the nTag being used for "idea sharing". Then think about how astronomically absurd that whole scene was. Now consider the fact that these people are dead serious about selling you this product. (Make sure you check out the other demonstrations too.)

If Monty Python was still running, Terry Gilliam would be proud to make some of these animations. Beautifully surreal!

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