Everyone comes to SXSW expecting to have their minds blown. This week in Austin categories are shattered, the impossible is actual and the thousands upon thousands of tech, business, marketing, education and digital culture geeks experience the ineffable. As a theo-tech-culture fanatic what I love about SXSW is taking a peek over that next horizon and catching a glimpse of what’s next.
Inspiration was the theme of my first day at SXSW. After moving quickly through the business of registration (thanks, SXSW organizers!), Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot Industries (makerbot.com), talked about the first commercially available 3D printing system, its capabilities and the future possibilities of pervasive 3D printing and scanning. For $2,800 a better version of what I experienced in 1999 in a development lab in a massive engineering firm can now be on my desktop. The possibilities with 3D imaging and printing will only increase with improvements in materials and the scale of these devices. We cannot yet imagine what people will design and what interesting problems they will solve!
Following Pettis’ opening address, Dr. Steve Weinberg, Professor of Physics at UT Austin since 1982, offered his vision for a unification of physics. The unification of physics? Why is this at SXSW? What does it have to do with technology and culture? Everything. In every era of human development, radical changes in the physical description of the cosmos generates world-changing shifts in philosophy, theology, self-understanding and, therefore, human cultures. In the 1970s, Weinberg theorized the existence of a subatomic particle, known as the Higgs-Boson particle, which was actually discovered in a CERN super-collider experiment this past summer. This finding is yet another indicator that all areas of human inquiry ultimately converge. That is, the fundamental reality of the cosmos that has been pursued through centuries of human inquiry all points toward unification or oneness. This insight has critical, theologically affirmed, implications for a culture that increasingly embraces fragmentation, disintegration and deconstruction. Weinberg’s presence at SXSW was an appeal to continue to fund these world-shaping inquiries that will continue to establish the foundations of scientific inquiry, philosophy and culture. The ground of all reality shapes our existence and it is inspiring to continue the quest to understand the One who undergirds the cosmos.
Finally, I experienced the inspirational stylings of Jason Silva. Silva is an enthusiast, in the classical sense, who synthesizes the insights of futurists into videos designed to energize creativity (Check them out at http://vimeo.com/jasonsilva). It is impossible to encounter Silva and come away feeling pessimistic or skeptical about the world. You get a feeling for that in his video segments, which are used by educators throughout the country to get their students excited about the possibilities in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The vision he cast that drives much of the work on display at SXSW and was a great wake up call to get everyone into the right frame of mind for SXSW.
What a blessing to be immersed among people who embrace massive disruption, who tenaciously and fearlessly pursue that which is not yet and who are passionately optimistic about human possibility! On to Day 2!
Not sure what your up to in the morning but a bunch of us are going to contigo for brunch at 11:30. Pretty amazing group actually. My cousin Lance is a theoretical particle physicist at Stanford who spent last summer at CERN.