May 18, 2004
Form Follows Function... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes."
There's a concept in design - whether it's architecture, furniture making or engineering - which says "form follows function." The idea is that when you first build something new, you're entirely consumed with getting the function right, getting it to do what you want it to do. Then you stand back and say, "Golly, that's not very pretty!"
So once you've gotten the function squared away, then you set out to spiff it up. From doggy doors to the opaque buttons on the dashboard of your car, I can assure you that serial number one of these wonderful innovations would not have fed your sense of the aesthetic.
It's also true when we first use technology. Initially, we have no sense of a gadget's appropriate place. When I was first graced with the gift of a microwave, I immediately prepared an entire dinner for my family. I quickly learned why making meatloaf from scratch in the microwave has never caught on.
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The idea of "form follows function" flooded back to me with the recent scandal surrounding the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees.
The first and most obvious one caused Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to shake his head in both disbelief and agitation while testifying before a panel of US Senators. It seemed that every soldier was personally equipped with digital cameras and they were emailing all this material everywhere. I would tender the guess that this was all new to the military - who knew to make a rule about it? And through all this, have you heard of anyone being prosecuted for taking and/or disseminating unauthorized photos?
I can tell you right now there will be new and very specific rules about how a soldier may use recording devices of any type from here forward, not to mention emailing the resulting data all around. The "form" of how military personnel may and may not take pictures will now follow the "function" - that is, the fact that they easily can.
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There's another aspect of "form follows function" in place here, and I would put it under the heading of the technology of words. Much has been said attempting to describe the human behavior we see in these pictures. Many have tried to decipher the expressions on faces, to dissemble their thoughts, their attitudes, their motivations. But never before in the history of man have actions like these been photographed.
Questionable behavior - if we might call it that for these purposes - is usually carried out "in the dark," where no one can see, and the victims have nothing to point at, their protests are only words lost in the wind. And this would be true here as well, had it not been for the hubris of digital photography.
The truth is we don't yet have words for this. There are few if any first-hand records of activities like these. And certainly none where we can see the whites of their eyes, the details of their facial expressions, their posture, their demeanor, all recorded with precise megapixel clarity. In general, humanity is trying to use existing words for new information. And we're not only at a loss for words. We also don't quite know where to put what we see into what we know about human behavior.
As painful as all this is, this is yet one more of those times when the unexpected consequences of technology step in and change everything.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
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