In 1993 the Internet was just getting started, and was mostly in the hands of scientists, military, and tech-minded bulletin board users and science fiction fans. That year I was commissioned by a client who ran a tech magazine to illustrate his upcoming book, "The Internet Guide for New Users." This was one of the full-page pieces I did for the series (other smaller ones have been published here on this Blog). I was instructed to list and depict all the possible uses for this upcoming world-changer: university teaching, high-speed communications, entertainment, information sharing. It was a happy utopian vision which, like others, did not foresee some of the most important consequences of "Internetville." What really came to Internetville? The infinite Mall of Cyberspace Shopping, the tyranny of Big Data, the destruction of the recorded music industry, outsourcing of technical and other labor, the degradation of information into "fake news" and sinister propaganda, and of course, porn.
Original art is black ink with computer graphics stuck on, 8 1/4" x 10 1/4", May 1993. Please click on image for a larger view.
1 comment:
Yeah, that's the kind of thing we told people when I worked for an early Internet company.
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