The Importance of Artifact
While digging around for more info on the “found” work of Vivian Meier, I stumbled onto Todd Bieber’s video detailing his discovery of a roll of film in Prospect Park. He shows some of the (well shot) photography and wonders if he’ll ever find the people who took them. While this is an interesting story, I didn’t find it all that poignant until I read Peter Kirn’s take on Create Digital Motion.
Indeed, we are losing touch more and more with physical media. Perhaps this is a good thing for many reasons, but as a musician I struggle with the most meaningful way to release my work. I grew up focusing on the media as a sort of physical manifestation of the art that it contained. Perhaps it was just my childhood fascination with all things printed and ephemeral, but I do feel a definite disconnect now between myself and my –all digital– music collection. I personally like the idea of a physical object to represents an otherwise unsee-able art form.
I realize that we are marching inexorably towards a physical media-free future (and for most of us, we’re already there), but I’d love to see more ideas like IDEO’s C60 Redux concept; an RFID music system that plays on the strengths of physical and digital media. A system like this might not always be as practical as purely digital music, but I for one would love to experience music at home this way.
More at Create Digital Motion, NPR, TechGear
