I think this differs wildly depending on who you are. Part of me feels the way Jeffrey does... when it's other people's media. For my own, looking at a box of old tapes gives me a choking sensation. I try to discard whatever I don't think will be useful for a future project, but I wait at least a year to make that decision, since I find I don't really have enough perspective to use material to its best advantage for at least that long after I've shot it/captured it/whatever.
I even destroy masters occasionally, but I'm someone who sometimes cringes when old work of mine shows up somewhere, so I'm probably not the best advice-giver here. I even throw away my notebooks every few years. My fantasy life involves not having to store anything, ever, and having every tool I need to make music and video without compromise fit in a shoebox. I've just never made peace with the reality of Stuff. Given what Trace Garden was made of, this is total hypocrisy, I know. Brook _________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
