Electronic Cafe

It is not the technology that they outline in the essay, "Welcome to the Electronic Cafe International" by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, that is all that remarkable. It is the depth of insight of the importance of the arts/humanities in shaping a collaborative space which "spans distance, language, values and culture."

The arts need to "take a role in shaping, humanizing emerging technologies." In doing so they allow the public to experience a unique phenomenon that might have be reserved only for the rich. Technology can be developed, it is the arts that shape how society not only integrates technology but creates a demand for new technologies. As Charles Dickens point out in his novel, Hard Times, the arts are needed to ensure that mankind is not just motivated by monotonous efficiency but is driven by the praise for original thought, individuality and the development of paternalistic/alturistc collaborative relationships. Electronic Cafe's are in large part a modern crusade to make a vehicle whose obvious role is economic prosperity into a means for a more humane society.

Through the experience of the electronic Cafe's there was evidence of the arts fostering new ideas and attitudes about technology. Instead of the linear focus, of faster and more efficient, these collaborative cyber workspaces explore the "intangibles" of human experience thought the use of technology.