White Heat

Tuesdays at 9 p.m.
beginning March 7

Technology enables humans to travel around the world and beyond, extend life and reduce the mortality rate, and expand their leisure time. Yet for many, it is a threatening force over which they feel they have little control.

For eight evenings, this absorbing and accessible series explores the complex relationship between humanity and technology. Each one-hour episode delves into a fascinating, and sometimes surprising, range of technological ideas - including stone-age culture, the Paris sewage system, the automobile assembly line, modern warfare, virtual reality, and Big Macs - and the often unexpected effect each development had on subsequent events.

The series begins at the dawn of technology with a look at the basic human skills that we continually adapt and use to improve our lives. Subsequent episodes question our cultural dependence on new artifacts and inventions - was there ever a real need for disposable nappies, parking meters, or even clocks for that matter, or was the need invented by technology? - and debatye the role systems technology plays in today's hand-to-keyboard warfare.

For viewers who are uncomfortable with where science is steering them, White Heat also looks at the fears and fantasies associated with technological progress. With mechnanical slaves on the horizon to "free" us from drudgery and Sega poised to bring virtual reality into every home, techno-fear and techno-fantasy appear to be flip sides of the same coin.