"LIFE ETC."

Multi Tasking Culture


As the global (and hyper-spatial) basic tool of the 21st century life, a computer is full of potential metaphors about contemporary life. One can see the random character of terrorist activities in the Microsoft screen saver with a randomly appearing Windows symbol. One can also observe the vital role of light which gives existence to both the screen of your computer, and a supermarket. Without light, neither the computer files you use, nor the products in a supermarket, really exist.

Besides randomness and light, another essential complement of recent computer technology is multi-tasking, which enables the user to switch between tasks without completing any of them. Thanks to the taskbar, you can watch Sevtap Parman singing "Que Sera" on YouTube (I recommend you check it out if you haven't yet) while your homework assignment is waiting on Microsoft Word, and your e-mail inbox is open in Internet Explorer. The incompleteness (and even inconsistency) of the tasks does not stop your attention from being divided. You can open two different mp3 files at the same time. The computer will not tell you how silly it is.

As we watch public attention wandering between the orphanage scandal, Kurtlar Vadisi Irak, the death of Attila İlhan, the use of drugs among high school students, child porn and the question of ethnic minorities in a few months, it feels as if the remote control of the popular screen, or the task bar of the social operating system is never put aside. We constantly switch between programs, without really following even one of them.

In December 2006, the number one news stories were on a child porn scandal. The concept immediately adopted the role of "public enemy." People were shocked; everybody questioned what was wrong with our relations with little children. It was as if 90% of children in Turkey were forced to appear in child porn and one in every three adults had secret child porn folders on their computers.

In February 2007, everybody forgot about the porn scandal. Why? Did we solve the problem? Were all of the evil child porn collectors punished? Were the child porn web sites of Turkish origin completely eliminated? Of course not. Three bullets hit the remote control of the popular culture and we switched to the problem of racism in January.

Be prepared to observe the switch from racism to global warming these days, because the movie An Inconvenient Truth is coming to theaters. Neither the popular coverage of racism because of the idiot, Ogün Samast, will help us to solve the racism problem, nor will a convincing movie on global warming make us throw away all the evil sprays we use.

Child porn, racism and global warming are nothing but trends exaggerated in order to spice up public surveillance. Or did you think that a movie would stop global warming? No, it won't. Get used to the idea: We are killing the planet, and we don't really care about it. Full stop.