Unplugged around the world

Unplugged around the world

Since my initial experiment in 2008 I get a lot of messages around the world from people who are doing similar projects. These projects vary in size but they have one thing in common. “What will happen if you unplug?”

Last week I spoke at Eday 2010 and I gave an update on these interesting projects:

Jeroen van Loon
To graduate without the computer at a digital academy of art? Is that at all possible? Jeroen van Loon started his project: “From Digital to Analogue”. He worked for several months on this projects and sent out offline blogposts and created a fantastic visual art piece in the end.

The New York Times
(These) technologies have become so constant in many of our lives we can’t see ourselves without them even as the impact of them on our personal and professional lives — and even our brains — is being discovered. The Times is starting a video project asking readers to see what happens when they give up technology. We’re looking for volunteers to unplug temporarily and tell us about their experience.

Zeit Online (german)
Zwei neue Selbstversuche, offline: Christoph Koch und Alex Rühle beschreiben in ihren Büchern das Leben ohne Netz und digitalen Boden.

Slate – James Sturm
“I have been offline for almost four weeks now. I imagined by this time I would have all kinds of dramatic stories about resentful co-workers, domestic tension, and feelings of isolation, but so far the biggest surprise has been how uneventful it is. The benefits have outweighed the hassles.”

Do you know of any one who should be mentioned on this blog? Please let me know. And by the way: here is video of my talk at TED2009 about the topic “Can you live without the Internet”.