The most exciting video in the whole world

Pianola Demonstration from musanim on Vimeo.

I wonder if the pianola represents an era, or if an "era" is repreresented in it, wherein mankind's techni-inventiveness was still bound up in certain ways with art. There are many figures throughout history (lots of them eccentric) who were artist/inventor/collector/observer/note-taker, and other things in between, like Alex Jordan, Jr. It seems to me the art that was bound with techni-invention has been removed, and with it, the invention. Now we are left with techni. Oh yes, techni that spawns its own self-fertilized progeny into countless derivatives, but it remains largely techni.

A good question is whether the boom of "technological progress" in the industrial revolution could have been a better "boom", that is, better in all ways. The question is, perhaps the start of it was a gift descending to us, but even in its descending, it was hijacked. And perhaps if we had received this gift in loving sacrifice, the technological progress not only would have been non-slave-making and non-polluting, but it would have been even more genuinely inventive, and thus, more effecient. Was the Holy Spirit inspiring inventions and technological ideas that we refused in our grab after a mere coarse, utilitarian copy?

Ai, and just as that hijacking most likely (I believe it did) occurred, we have now, in these years after 2000, something different. Just as the inspirations of invention were hijacked at the advent of the industrial revolution, now that very notion, the realization of that hijacking, has itself been hijacked - by new agers.

Grrr...I don't know about this vimeo site. If you want to watch the video, just click on "Pianola Demonstration" below the video box.