John Thackara: Summary of The Introduction

John Thackara introduced the fourth Doors of Perception conference, on the topic of 'Speed', by stating that when a year ago he and Michiel Schwarz started investigations into the nature of knowledge as seen from a perspective of acceleration in information transmission and media accessibility, it soon became apparent that a proper history of 'speed' was largely unwritten. Knowledge and technology used to take years to disseminate, but beginning with the telegraph, then radio and TV, today we have near real-time. How much time has been spent reflecting on this? It has been happening for 40 years or less, but why so little before?

Doors conferences do not claim to provide future forecasts: they look ahead by concentrating on the now and evaluating the (recent) past. Consequently, for this edition the goals were set: to make speed visible on the agenda of the design disciplines; to reflect a context for cultural and informational accelerations in relation to the European environmental debate; to break out of the Western viewpoint by inviting a substantial contribution from India; to debate scenarios for design at different speeds.