I recently interviewed Cat from Getting Lost for Book Art Studios TV.
During the interview, she said something in passing that rocked my world.
It was without a doubt, a verbal wake up call.
When talking about the Getting Lost game that Cat and her husband developed, she mentioned how curated our lives have become.
BOOM.
I understood in a heartbeat what she meant and quickly did a spot check of how much of a curated life I'm living and found this:
When I'm writing, software picks up spelling mistakes and changes them.
Google predicts my questions and I've never asked one that someone else hasn't asked before me.
Google maps tells me where to go without having to consult a map.
My smart phone does so much of the work I barely need to turn up.
As I was pondering what a curated life means to me, I recalled a conversation I had with my nephew Luke back in 2015. We were talking about how technology was slowly dumbing us down. For example: Smart fridges developed to let you know when you're out of milk/eggs etc. We are in a sense being trained to stop thinking for ourselves.
When Getting Lost hit the market, it's hardly surprising people embraced it so enthusiastically. What a wondrous opportunity to head off with no idea as to where your adventuring will take you. In a fairly predictable world, how refreshing to engage in a game that's unpredictable.
As you know, in situations like this, I enjoy thinking more deeply about how they relate to art, my art practice in particular. The thought of being predicable in my art work is certainly a wake up call in itself! But thankfully, on retrospection, I like to think I'm always pursuing new horizons. I can now see why I enjoy facebook live so much (even though it scares me a little). I like how unpredictable it is and I'd like to think it's refreshing for an audience to be a part of a larger community from the comfort of their own home.
Technology is great, don't get me wrong, but it's important like anything to remain aware and vigilant as to how and where you'd like it to feature in your own life. I'm now thinking how else I can get lost so that I may adventure into new realms. Apart from playing the Getting Lost game, which I will totally be trying out, here's some other options:
Get lost in art work (delve deeply into new ideas and techniques)
Get lost figuring out how to spell a word without spell check!
Get lost in thoughts - I used to spend ages just thinking about stuff!
Get lost in figuring out how something works and how to fix it
Get lost in a new hobby that challenges and delights you!
Get lost in a new city or country or even a new suburb!
If you didn't get to watch the interview with Cat and me, you can watch it here.
Meanwhile, here's one of my favourite quotes from a tourist advert years ago, and if you want to see the full advert click on the quote (then scroll down to the video once you arrive at the website).