Comment: Technology for technology's sake

The Symphony of Lights in Hong Kong

Telecoms giant Huawei has been kind enough to take a handful of journalists out to its headquarters in China this week.

We flew into Hong Kong and had a day in the city before moving on to the company's campus on the mainland. One of the famous sights we were treated to during a whirlwind tour of the city was the Symphony of Lights.

Hong Kong's skyline is impressive at the best of times, but this is a truly astonishing spectacle of music, lights and lasers played out every evening over the Victoria Harbour in which entire buildings take part. It's like the creator is bending the city to his will.

The logistics required to put something of this scale together are mind blowing. Getting the owners of all these huge buildings to agree to the plan, having the buildings clad in the various types of lighting, timing the music, lasers and lights to all work in time comes together with astonishing effect.

We must also bear in mind that the event is shown for free every night and serves no purpose other than to impress and enthrall those on the embankment with a gargantuan display of artistic expression.

Sadly, after watching it, I couldn't help think that trying to do something on a similar scale in a city like London would probably just bring in a raft of complaints about the unnecessary cost and flagrant waste of energy, and I got to thinking about technology for the sake of technology.

Most recently the Large Hadron Collider project came under a lot of fire from critics, who claimed that it was just a waste of money and that the funding would be better spent elsewhere.

I won't even begin to argue about the myriad possibilities and very worthwhile results we may obtain from the LHC experiment, but even assuming it was just being done to answer some fundamental questions about the universe, shouldn't that be enough?

Yes, there are a lot of needy people in the world and there are a lot of worthwhile causes that are desperately short of the resources they need to do their vital work, but let's never forget that art is also a fundamental part of society and the human psyche.

When technology starts to enter the realm of art, and when we turn to science not just for profit and progression but for understanding and inspiration, shouldn't we consider technology for technology's sake?

Once again I would like to congratulate Hong Kong on its spectacular Symphony of Lights, both as an incredible show and as a reminder that sometimes just being impressive is enough.