Michiel van Bakel

Michiel van Bakel

Van Bakel made a 'scanner-camera' that extends human vision to near-infrared light in an other-worldly way. What's this thing called vision? What's the fundamental difference between what a robot discerns, what a flying insect detects or man's observation? '"Wood" is an old name for forest. In the wood there are paths, mostly overgrown, that come to an abrupt stop where the wood is untrodden. They are called Holzwege. Each goes its separate way, though within the same forest. It often appears as if one is identical to another. But it only appears so. Woodcutters and forest keepers know these paths. They know what it means to be on a Holzweg.' From the preface to Martin Heidegger's 'Off the Beaten Track' (Holzwege). 'Human beings have absorbed technology at an unconscious level, such that they have come to operate through technology, as though by way of some tele-kinesis. ...It is time, it would seem, to adopt a more flexible and tolerant attitude towards technology. It is time to break free from the shackles of the past. It is time, perhaps, to forget Heidegger.' Neil Leach