Saturday 24 May 2008

"Telepresence": Robert Ballard's exploration & exploitation of new frontiers


More on the theme of underwater dystopia, the regeneration of the frontier mythos, and the articulation with the spirit of entrepreneurship, putting a mind into "reset mode" as explorer Robert Ballard enthusiastically puts it in this eloquent piece of self promotion:
By perfecting "telepresence"- the ability to see beyond the confines of the body, as in exploration of the Titanic, Ballard hoped to offer greater therapeutic benefits than movies or tv...This was the logic of Reagan era political economy: that everybody benefitted from the energies of the liberated entrepreneur; that what mattered most of all, as Ballard said of telepresence and the discovery of Titanic, was "to make people feel good"; that images were reality.
Down with the Old Canoe: a Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster by Steven Biel (page 216)

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