Trilobites
Definition
The Trilobite was one of the earliest forms of life, and lived over 500 million years B.C. Trilobites were free-swimming filter feeders were composed of a series of pieces similar to a lobster. They also had compound eyes, which they routinely shed and re-grew, along with the rest of their body. The amount of lenses on these eyes ranged from hundreds of thousands, and Trilobites grew more each time they shed them.
If we consider television monitors, iPhone screen and the liquid crystal displays of our laptops to be extensions of our eyes, then we, like the trilobites, shed our eyes as well. We shed our electronics to better adapt to our surrounding environments. When Windows 95 is inadequate for functioning in a social and professional world dominated by Windows 2000, any lag in upgrading may cost us functionality. Like our clothes, we shed our electronics when they do not provide us the mobility or resolution of experience we require to exist.  This is not to say that everyone needs electronics to exist, but that humans are measured by those in their sociocultural vicinities. Those measure them closest to them in class status and proximity. (In the digital space, this proximity does not necessarily have to be physical). In the same way, everyone must ‘keep up with the Joneses”, as systems of social and economic currencies change more quickly the more readily they adopt faster prosthetics.
In these systems, the rapid accumulation of change alters vocabulary, speech patterns and everyday relations. Brand names creep into language, software and Internet terminology flow into analog conversational topics, and relationships become managed more and more as a function of prosthetic connectivity.  During one point in history, the amount of trilobites rapidly increased. And at another point, they very rapidly went extinct. As filter feeders, they were attuned to the early environment of the Earth. As human/machine filter feeders, we use robots to comb through our search results, giving us the correct data. Perhaps we’re not so different after all.
