Comments On "The Machine is Us/ing Us" and "We Think"

Both of these shorts grapple with how to depict 'virtual' space which does not really exist in 4-dimensions as we think of them. It is interesting that both use a fairly conventional, low tech approach to this in the form of stop-frame or hand drawn animation (admittedly though this is certainly a convenient form for digestion through a youtube pop-up box). In such an 'hyper' space, The Machine is Us/ing Us asks is there a difference between virtually anywhere, anywhere virtual and anywhere virtually? Can it be possible to mark out a dividing line between the virtual and the real when the internet is building itself through our reactions to it? is it a place? or a source? The other notable thing about these shorts is the fact they both have a utopian outlook, the same one associated with the birth of the internet and its early development. "We Will", "You Will", the internet is seen as a place of collective activity. When "we are teaching the machine each time we forge a link, we teach it an idea", and so man and machine become inseparable. However the question "We need to rethink a few things..." continuously looms over this somewhat strained positive outlook. Likewise in We Think the life of ideas is explored, ideas that take life when they are shared. This collectivity is deemed essential for creativity. But it is the web really a mass of such productive conversations? It would be nice to think that following the eras of mass production and mass consumption we are now entering one of mass innovation but we do not have complete proof for this. Has the internet really created more freedom of knowledge, or are we dependant on how knowledge-able we are? Should ideas be free since they undoubtably have a value? Is making them free undermining their worth? And the ultimate question of quality should not be overlooked - "what if wikipedia is crap?"