I spent my entire life behind a computer and this was never actually a really big problem
until I had to graduate in 2010.
I was studying digital media design at art school in Utrecht and at that moment my repeat
of stretch injury complaints became so severe that my neck, my eyes, my legs and my wrist
also started to itch and to itch and feel painful each time I used the computer.
And this was kind of a big problem because I still had to graduate, I had to come up
with a project concerning new media and digital media.
So eventually I decided I would graduate without touching a computer.
And I created a project that was called from digital to analog.
And in this project I didn't choose a computer or touch the internet for two whole months.
And during these two months I started an analog blog which is almost the same as a digital
one except now I would write my blog post on a typewriter.
I would copy my blog post with a stencil machine and eventually I would send all my blog posts
to my blog readers by the traditional post system.
And each week I would write a blog post on how my life for me as a digital native changed
without the internet.
But after a few weeks I started asking the same questions to my blog readers.
How would your life change if you didn't have a computer and the internet?
And that's when I received a lot of beautiful personal handwritten letters in which people
explained to me how their lives would change without the internet.
And even though the letters were very fascinating, the contrast between all these letters was
not that big because in the Netherlands everybody has a computer and everybody has an internet
connection.
So what a teenager would write was almost the exact same thing as a woman in her 60s
or 70s.
And that's when I started another project which was called Life Needs Internet.
And for Life Needs Internet I traveled for seven months looking for places that represented
the extreme opposite of my restaurant access to the internet.
And everywhere I went I asked local people to handwrite me a letter in their own native
language in which they described the influence of the internet on their daily life.
So here you can see Linda Gombo from West Papua writing her letter about the internet.
And after seven months I returned back to the Netherlands with over 70 letters.
I translated all the letters and I decided to continue to collect, to receive and to
ask people to write me these letters.
Because it's a fascinating medium, it's a traditional medium, the handwritten letter,
it's a physical medium and I'm using it to document digital culture.
And a few months ago I decided to upload all these letters I had since 2010, translate
them into English and upload them on a platform called LifeNeedsInternet.com.
And here you can search all the letters I received and collected on gender, different
categories, age and in more than 20 countries.
And I want to show you a few of these letters so that you can really get an idea of the
scope of the project and that you can understand why I want to continue this project for the
next 10 to 15 years.
The first letter is from Denise from the Netherlands, she wrote a story about having
a long distance relationship with her partner, today they're living together in the same
physical space and still she writes, when we are together I sometimes miss Skype, then
I go to another room to start Skype to hear just how he's doing.
And this is a beautiful example of a letter where digital technology, the internet, brings
people closer instead of pulling them apart.
The first letter about social relationships is from Jingwen from China, who writes without
the internet, it becomes difficult to share feelings, maybe by telephone, but it doesn't
include strangers from the net.
And it's a very interesting quote and I think very normal for her generation to upload all
your feelings to the net, even if there are strangers watching.
Sonja from Brazil wrote, children should go back to old books and don't look up everything
on the internet, she's a little bit older and I think it's a classic example of someone
who doesn't trust the internet to have positive effects on our life.
Lydia from India writes, someone who doesn't use the computer is missing out in life, which
is kind of ironic because she herself doesn't own a computer, she has to go to an internet
cafe and use there the internet, but still she thinks of the computer as such a fundamental
tool that without it you cannot fulfill your true potential.
Jinra from Lebanon writes, I received the iPhone as a gift for my birthday, it is definitely
a double-edged sword and sometimes I wish I hadn't received it.
I think this is a prime example of my generation that still has problems to cope with the internet.
How do we let the internet into our lives?
It's the biggest priority, the lowest or the middle, we just don't know that.
A journalist from the Netherlands who is 36, she writes, digital information has made modern
men suffer from digital incontinence, it's a very critical letter in which she argues
that it has become almost impossible to value anything online of its quality because when
you search for a picture of one bird, you get a million pictures of the same bird in
the same tree, so which one is the best?
And Isaac from West Papua, I didn't write a letter, I met him in West Papua, he was
the first of the only person I've met who didn't know what the concept of internet was.
So I asked him, do you know what the internet is, he said no, then I asked him, can you
try to explain what you think internet is, and he said internet is culture.
And his answer completely blew my mind because of course internet is culture, internet is
digital culture and digital culture is becoming more and more important and this is precisely
the reason why I want to continue this project, I want to document the way we feel about the
internet today so we can reflect on the internet tomorrow.
Three months ago my life changed quite dramatically, I hardly sleep anymore and I'm having trouble
to focus on my work, not because of a new video game or iPad or laptop or some internet
trend, but it's because the following sound keeps me awake each night, and since I became
a father I'm thinking more and more about the future, not only my future, the future
of my son, but also the future of the internet, because how will he use the internet, will
there even be an internet left, will there be a new medium and how will we cope with
this new medium, the internet is a very debated topic right now especially because of Edward
Snowden and that's why I want to ask you the following question, how does the internet
influence your life and perhaps you want to write me a handwritten letter about your
personal internet stories so that in 10 to 15 years I can show my son your letters and
your stories and show him that the internet was a fascinating medium that changed all
of our lives and every aspect of society and it was far more important than just to watch
very stupid funny YouTube videos.
So I hope I inspire you to write me your own cultural artifact, a handwritten letter and
I expect it in my mailbox the following days.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
