Ken Goldberg, one of my favorite telepistemologist (one who studies nature of knowledge through mediated sources like the internet) developed the Telegarden. The Telegarden uses the internet as its medium to promote its audience to command the real industrial robotic arm to maintain a garden. Even though the garden and the robotic arm are real, Goldberg’s main purpose is to evoke disbelief. Goldberg has assumed that media technology suspends disbelief but Goldberg wants there to be that sense of disbelief. I believe that Goldberg still wants his viewers to be suspicious and awe in disbelief of his accomplishments. In sense, making a work of art that is so amazing that it is too-good-to-be-true increases value of his work. If viewer believes that his artwork is just as real as any other media technology, then the two media technologies are equal to each other. Have you ever seen the Disney movie, Road to El Dorado? The two main characters, Tulio and Miguel, were viewed as Gods to ancient (Aztec, Inca, or Mayan) civilization because they appeared too-good-to-be-true. In terms, Tulio and Miguel represent Goldberg’s work to the vast majority of audiences. However, if the tribe people saw that Tulio and Miguel were ordinary people from Spain, they probably would have tried killed them just as Tzekel-Kan did (who knew that they were not Gods). So if Goldberg’s work was seen as the Gods but then discovered to be just ordinary, then well, his work would be lame and pointless.
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