Tedx Sydney was a glorious mishmash of ideas. Design, technology and art came together to offer insights and perspectives that wouldn’t normally be side by side.
Google creative director Tom Uglow’s role at Google is to explore the interplay between technology and the arts. His session was in some ways surprising – and in other ways not.
It seems, he doesn't really like screens. Despite Salesforce technology making it possible for agencies, universities and other organisations around the country to access the day's sessions and watch them streamed live, through its Satellite Programme, and despite Google’s entire business model being around facilitating experiences through digital platforms and connecting people through technology, Uglow isn’t convinced it's as good as physically being there. “Intuitively, we know that watching it ‘real’ is a better experience to watching on the livestream. It has something to do with depth perception – the screen is taking that away,” he said.
He started off by asking the audience to think of their ‘happy place’ and then pointed out that it was most likely to be a natural environment, a beach or forest, and there was unlikely to be any kind of technology, or screens or devices, present.
That, he said, is because “natural things make us happy”.
“Good design should should feel natural,” he added. “I don’t like my phone very much,” he later added.
“There has to be a better solution than a world mediated by screens, I don’t hate screens but I don’t feel good about how much time I spend slouched over them.”
One of Uglow's overriding ideas is that the digital age and the internet can be complemented by physical experiences.
“There's more that you can do with these magic boxes... Your phone is not the internet’s door bitch. You can make physical things, using physics and pixels that can integrate the world of the internet with the world of advertising,” he said.
He then outlined a number of examples he'd worked on with organisations like Berg in London, creating Moodstone with Japanese agency AQ working on a research project into mental health, that try to bring physical experience to the internet. In line with that, Google staffers use hacky sacks embedded with tech to share URLs with each other around the office – to make it a more physical process.
With the stat that people check their phone up to 250 times a day, and screen time ever increasing, the concept that people are becoming addicted to phones and devices is gaining momentum. However, Uglow doesn’t buy it.
“You probably think you’re addicted to your phone, but you’re not. We’re not addicted to devices we’re addicted to the information on it,” he said.
He likened this accessibility of information to the development of electricity – which is taken for granted now, but was revolutionary when it was invented.
“We are moving from static information to fluid information, and children will expect to be able to access everything just like switching on a light, in the same way that adults don’t appreciate switching on a light switch.”
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