Learning a new production culture
The challenging shift towards an increasingly virtual society
So much so for manufacturing and industry – if we take a closer look to what is happening within the economic and social system, its increasing digitalisation, more pervasive networks and ubiquitous social media all lead us to look beyond the concept and image of a “liquid society” developed over 20 years ago towards a “gaseous modernity” instead. A brand-new notion that still needs to be fully explored, yet a notion to be fully reckoned with, also in terms of production systems. Reading the latest essay by Francesco Morace – “Modernità gassosa” (“Gaseous modernity”) – does just that.
The author identifies and describes an increasingly volatile society that is dissolving through social media and an increasingly dominant digital dimension. Morace attempts to answer a question: why is our reality dematerialising to the point of having become “gaseous”? With social media, we entered an era of self-consumption: not only the vaporising of our images but also of our existence. Thanks to the endless options available to us we feel freer than ever before, yet the gaze of others subjects us to unprecedented social pressure, and the danger of a slip up is never too far away. Digital technologies engender new opportunities while also making the employment sphere much more unpredictable. Artificial intelligence progresses, together with its wild fallacies, and it is likely to make us dumber. This was supposed to be a peaceful era, yet we find ourselves in the middle of conflicts that make no sense at all.
Morace analyses the tangible consequences of a complex scenario that affects all our lives, and tries to describes some “flying techniques” needed to tackle it. Techniques that everyone will find useful, including businesspeople who will have to adapt their work and production culture to such shifting and new circumstances – a kind of challenge towards a new production culture able not to waste the past yet capable to reach a new an unexpected present.
“Modernità gassosa” (“Gaseous modernity”)
Francesco Morace
Egea, 2023
The challenging shift towards an increasingly virtual society
So much so for manufacturing and industry – if we take a closer look to what is happening within the economic and social system, its increasing digitalisation, more pervasive networks and ubiquitous social media all lead us to look beyond the concept and image of a “liquid society” developed over 20 years ago towards a “gaseous modernity” instead. A brand-new notion that still needs to be fully explored, yet a notion to be fully reckoned with, also in terms of production systems. Reading the latest essay by Francesco Morace – “Modernità gassosa” (“Gaseous modernity”) – does just that.
The author identifies and describes an increasingly volatile society that is dissolving through social media and an increasingly dominant digital dimension. Morace attempts to answer a question: why is our reality dematerialising to the point of having become “gaseous”? With social media, we entered an era of self-consumption: not only the vaporising of our images but also of our existence. Thanks to the endless options available to us we feel freer than ever before, yet the gaze of others subjects us to unprecedented social pressure, and the danger of a slip up is never too far away. Digital technologies engender new opportunities while also making the employment sphere much more unpredictable. Artificial intelligence progresses, together with its wild fallacies, and it is likely to make us dumber. This was supposed to be a peaceful era, yet we find ourselves in the middle of conflicts that make no sense at all.
Morace analyses the tangible consequences of a complex scenario that affects all our lives, and tries to describes some “flying techniques” needed to tackle it. Techniques that everyone will find useful, including businesspeople who will have to adapt their work and production culture to such shifting and new circumstances – a kind of challenge towards a new production culture able not to waste the past yet capable to reach a new an unexpected present.
“Modernità gassosa” (“Gaseous modernity”)
Francesco Morace
Egea, 2023