“ Two years ago, blogging about my ambient TV loops, I said “The reason that television and music have become “ground” or “field” in this way is that only the internet can be figure.” Older media like music and TV just had to take their place in the background; I was too busy clicking through web pages to pay them much attention. The internet had become the place where I searched for “edited highlights”.
But two years on, I find I’m expecting the internet, too, to start falling into the background. I want the internet (and perhaps this is a mark of its mellowing maturity as a medium; it lost its teenage stridency, its me-me-me quality) to get ambient, to get dull. I’m not talking about those 2007 buzz terms “the internet of things” or “everyware” or “pervasive computing” or “ubiquitous computing” or “ambient intelligence”. I suppose I’m thinking more of the internet as a medium in which you can go for a daily walk, without really doing, or expecting to do, anything significant.
— Momus
