In 1968 Andy Warhol launched the idea that: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Later in 1979 Warhol restated his idea with the words: “…my prediction from the sixties finally came true: In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

Yesterday my colleague Dr Dick posted this amazing quote on Facebook:

In the future, everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes.

With a little googling I found the origins of the quote come from the great street artist Banksy – here is a picture from one of his exhibitions.

This was a brilliant twist on the classic Warhol idea. Today everyone is striving for fame in a way that has never been done before. If we then add the death of privacy both the voluntary and the semi-voluntary. We voluntarily give away our privacy through blogs, twitter and facebook (and tons of other web2.0 applications). Then we semi-voluntarily give away too much information through our dependence upon technology.

Through all this loss of privacy the question is no longer one of fame or recognition. The question is if we in the future can have any privacy at all. So in the same way as Warhol in the sixties surprised (or even shocked?) people by claiming people would have fame the question today is more relevant whether we will have privacy.

Fifteen minutes of privacy is an important question to be thought about considering the way in which or society is moving.