The first assignment for Demystifying technological environments was to “post something about your early memories of the technologies that were part of your environment (home, work, town, workplace); clarifying when and where these memories took place.”

During class I mentioned public transportation systems, especially the massive accidents circa 1995 (though one of the collapses was actually a department store) and how that affected my subway experience afterwards. In the course forum I mentioned public transportation once again, specifically the payment methods in Seoul circa 2000.

This exercise also reminded me of some other scenes in my memory, that I tried to group into three categories.

1. Digital media
   • The first computer at my house was a 286 PC, mostly used by my bigger brother. I remember standing beside him to look while he was using a then-major BBS service, HITEL using a dial-up modem. This computer was also probably the last one in front of which all of our family members sat together, to play Tetris; my parents didn’t really play games beyond that. (circa 1992)
   • In France my family used the Minitel, an online service using the telephone line and consisting of many BBS service providers each with different rates per minute. The dull all-in-one body, of which the keyboard serves also as foldable screen cover, has some nostalgic attributes to it. (1994-1997)
   • This period also saw my first contact with a laptop computer, the heavy devices using PCMCIA cards and additional extension port bay. I would adjust the brightness of the LCD screen using a slider button. (1994)
   • There were French TV programs where the viewer would dial up a number using an ordinary telephone, and once connected push numbers to move around in a rather simple first-person perspective RPG world. I did not dare dialing more and a couple of times, but watching someone play the game was somehow fascinating. (circa 1995)
   • From a South Korean perspective I couldn’t say I was particularly strictly raised, but I was rarely given access to, and never granted possession of PC or console games. Before I decided I was adult enough to ignore this policy, I vicariously consumed game walkthroughs, usually published in the form of PC magazine supplements. (circa 1999)
   • Though not digital media, I want to mention OHPs and slide projectors— never saw those in use after entering 21C.
   • As I returned to Seoul in 1998 and entered middle school, more than half of the classrooms had a huge LCD TV set and a computer connected to it, something I had never seen before in a school environment (my previous schools only had a computer lab and maybe a few computers in the staff office). In high school I managed to break one of the screens, but luckily no one got hurt.
   • Cell phones were increasingly getting popular in the late 90s, but I got my first cell phone in 2003, an LG Cyon. After that I used two different models of Motorola StarTAC before buying an iPhone 4.
2. Music/audio
   • My parents would record conversations (or mumblings) of the family on cassette tapes and later on I would listen to them, with my mother or alone. Listening to those recordings was somehow genuinely entertaining. (circa 1992)
   • The biggest upgrade audio-wise in my family was the purchase of a Sony mini component system. The 5-cd deck was usually filled with classical compilation cd’s or some francophone singer. (1995)
   • AIWA walkman -> Panasonic CDP -> iPod nano -> iPhone 4 -> streaming services
3. Public transportation
   • My earliest memory is that of running into my aunt after riding on a bus with my mother. I felt strange that the oldest thing I can remember is not located home, but on a bus. (circa 1990)
   • Moving walkways were a wonder when I first saw them in the CDG airport. I don’t exactly recall why, but I guess because they feel so much more like a luxury than escalators? One time I was taking the late-night metro with my father and he suggested we run against the walkway’s moving direction. It was fun, even more as a couple behind us followed the example. (circa 1995)
   • Through my parents and Korean newspapers (delivered with delay via international mail) I learned about the collapse of a major bridge and department store in Seoul. Although I was spared of the graphic details, I wasn’t able to ride on a subway and cross the river without thinking of a survival scenario or imagining the fall into the river until the late 2000s.
   • There is a series of massive South Korean disasters related to public transportation, the most recent one involving the Sewol Ferry. The convenience of faster mass transportation seems to imply the danger of massive tragedies. Meanwhile, I feel that not enough safety measures were exercised in these accidents, that those in charge (whoever they may be) did not take enough responsibility nor were punished adequately, and hence the dangers are persistent in a society without safeguards. Cynicism and lack of trust seems only unavoidable.