"Our modern dependence on plugs keeps us earthbound, hooked up like intensive-care patients to life-support systems. For our world is far from being the homogeneous and even distributed space that would, in John Donne's words, make 'one little room, an every where'. It is lumpy, clustered, as our own bodies are, focused at particular points of passage and connection, nodes, portals and boreholes which we use to make connection, we are houseless, amnesic orphans, becoming suddenly aware if the pathetic limits of our internal thesaurus of songs and inboard mental entertainments. We are ourselves leaky vessels, draining sinks, sometimes hearing the gurgles of our own outflow. So, however we might fantasise about a world in which we could be open to ubiquitous energy and data, we know that we need to take every opportunity to engorge our devices with sufficient power to get us through to the next plug-stop."
Paraphernalia, The Curious Lives of Magical Things, Steven Connor
I like how plugs first started out as devices used to stop an outflow, the need to seal up exit points and yet later on, become a source of connection for the inflow of power which allows us to expand our world, to break through our limitations. How ironic!
Written, 18 October 2012