I love the idea of an e-ink display as an art piece, but does a dedicated display for news headlines really operate in the spirit of calm technology, given the current political climate?
I think calm technology is characterized by tech which is easily ignorable/does not outwardly communicate unless the user wants to interact with it. Given that the display effectively functions as a piece of art unless someone decides to look at and read it, I don't think it would contradict with this characterization. The stress that would be responsible for violating the spirit of calm technology only exists after a person decides to read the display.
One of the key technologies of surveillance in the novel is the “telescreen,” a device very much like our own television.
The telescreen displays a single channel of news, propaganda and wellness programming. It differs from our own television in two crucial respects: It is impossible to turn off and the screen also watches its viewers.”
https://theconversation.com/what-orwells-1984-tells-us-about...
Well, it’s only halfway to 1984, since it doesn’t look like it has a camera. Let’s call this a 992 technology.
For New Yorkers, walking out of the flat and being bombarded by a loud presentation of news was part of the experience for over 100 years, ever since newsstands have been around.
But the difference here is instead of being bombarded with 7 or 8 differing dailies headlines, you get exactly one. The NYT. That’s a bit Orwellian.
For some reason, the story of the man who ate nothing but McDonalds for weeks straight popped into my head.
Of course, this is easier said than done and I'm failing terribly at it.
There are a lot of RSS feeds for daily comics that you could feed into this - maybe a smaller eink tablet for a Calvin and Hobbes each AM.
As an art piece, this certainly keeps itself in the background and never tries to get your attention, instead just catches your eye, which might fit the 'calm technology' paradigm a bit better.