Kath, you're last remarks are particularly relevant in regards to the
emerging digital natives and millennials. My teaching is centered around
the study of the digital native as a kind of anthropological research. It
seems there is a clear trend towards giving up on privacy, and a growing
lack of concern for preservation, as you suggest. Of course when you are 20
you might not think it is important to save anything, but in fact, we have
a social media industry focused on information as more and more transient.
The social media of today is about the NOW, what is at the top of our feed,
which comes to our screen in the Moment, and then fades in descending
chronological order into a past we are no longer interested in. As Douglas
Rushkoff has written in Present Shock, we live in an ever-present-present
tense, our abbreviated attention span revolving around the here and now.
I suppose it's really up to how much people care about these things,
and whether they work towards saving some of it or preparing for the
future.
What in fact are we leaving behind for future generations on our hard
drives and cloud
repositories? And how will the technological culture of today be viewed
when these values are no longer decipherable. Are we in fact erasing our
historical past as we create it for the digital future?
I think this is a real issue. though we try to save some things using
archives, the changing formats and technology (and speed of change) is
causing data to be lost or at the very least, harder/longer to
recover/republish (especially if they need converting later on). it's
covering both net art and personal items such as home photos which are
generally no longer printed, and home videos. I also wonder what future
archeologists will think of our surviving buried rubbish. so whilst I love
the net, I think it's important to go back to hand made physical art and
craft too. if there is some pulse in the future which wipes all the
technology we'll be left with a gap from our digital/online years. let's
hope the libraries survive. I've heard of projects such as printed copies
of Wikipedia, but I wonder how many they print and how distributed these
are. (plus how often as WP changes so quickly). in smaller communities such
as music communities (for one example), there's less event flyers printed
out - they are all online or (worse) only on Facebook as event listings,
which means they are lost over very short times. I suppose it's really up
to how much people care about these things, and whether they work towards
saving some of it or preparing for the future.
looking forward to this month. checking out the artworks now - they're
looking great
thanks
On 3 March 2015 at 06:17, Randall Packer <[email protected]> wrote:
[snip]
Here are some questions to consider:
Are we in fact producing a cultural history that emanates from the
language of computers? Are the cultural references of today increasingly
coded in numerical values that will need to be compiled and encoded in
the
far future by curious historians of the 21st century? What in fact are we
leaving behind for future generations on our hard drives and cloud
repositories? And how will the technological culture of today be viewed
when these values are no longer decipherable. Are we in fact erasing our
historical past as we create it for the digital future?
Randall
[snip]
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