20. What are you geeking out about right now? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff
— Zac Chase (@MrChase) January 20, 2016
No matter how beautifully designed computers get or how intuitive and visually pleasing our software is, there is an amazing sameness to almost everything that happens on a laptop or desktop machine. There are text files and there are spreadsheets. There are webpages and there are design programs. The visual language of the computer has mostly coalesced at this point, and the slow progression toward a single understanding of what a “share button” looks like has been a great thing for ease of use and communicating to one another without a huge cognitive load.
But, I open no fewer than 100 website tabs a day and I stare at my computer screen for multiple hours straight. I need something in all of the monotony to inspire me, to engage my spirit and not just my intellect. So, I choose to leverage all of the advancements in computing power to change my outlook every time I open up a new tab or glance back at my desktop to grab a file.
I use The Google Art Project and FreshBackMac to expand my horizons every five minutes or so. They both bring in new art from around the world to both my browser and to my desktop background. I look forward to opening a new tab or dragging files around my computer now. I look forward to collecting my favorites and building a collection of art even as the sameness of writing emails bears down upon me. I get geeked every time I recognize an artist or discover a new type of visual communication. It takes me out of my computer and places me into a gallery or a museum. And best of all, it comes to me automatically, almost as a gift for doing my work.
I’m know there are more transformational things happening in technology right now. I could be geeked about driverless cars or virtual reality, but at this moment I’m not. Right now, I’m geeked out about art and the way in which I have so much of it in my life right now.
Always something new, always something different.
