blog.jasonconny.com

In the spirit of my topic, I am presenting this paper on the internet as part of my blog. It was written, revised and edited exclusively in WordPress’s text editor and will be maintained, in some form, by me for as long as I host this website. By making it publicly accessible I am opening it to other forms of digital archiving and realize it may have a life beyond this website. Nothing on the internet ever really goes away.
-jdc

“They speak (I know) of the ‘feverish Library whose chance volumes are constantly in danger of changing into others and affirm, negate and confuse everything like a delirious divinity.’ ”
-The Library of Babel, Jorge Louis Borges

Earlier this year I participated in a show at Roots and Culture curated by Eric Fleischauer called “The End of Analog.” The thesis of the show was to celebrate/call attention to/examine/question/what have you the government mandated switch from analog to digital television broadcast signals. Much of the work employed various analog and outdated technologies to evoke memories and nostalgia for a soon to be bygone time. Accompanying the show was a book [pdf, 796 KB] of essay’s ruminating on the implications of the evolution of technology and its effects on culture at this particular moment in time.

My drawings were part of Robert Snowden and Carson Salter’s FloorPlan project which consists of a series of works on paper by a variety of artists that depict the floor plans of various sitcom households. Each artist invited to participate was asked to draw from memory three of the following: Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment from Seinfeld, the downstairs of the Tanner house from Full House, the downstairs of the Simpson house from The Simpsons, the downstairs of the Huxtable’s brownstone frome The Cosby Show or the downstairs of the Banks mansion from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The object was to document the collective memory of shared experiences and how those memories, much like analog artifacts, degrade over time. The project reached its apotheosis through inclusion up the upstairs of the Full House house by Mary-Kate Olsen (she, along with her sister Ashley, played the youngest daughter Michelle on the show). The drawing, which is executed in ballpoint pen on yellow legal paper, consists of two crudely drawn rectangles. One is labeled “My room” and the other “Michelle’s room” which proves Salter and Snowden’s point that our memories, much like the analog TV signal that’s being replaced, are unreliable.

The unreliability of the analog object or artifact and the promise of the digital replacement is predicated on the notion that at some point the analog version will fail and that we, as a society or culture, require the redundancy of the digital archive to fulfill our desire to continue to consume cultural offerings in perpetuity. The digital archive not only preserves the analog original, it also gives the original a form that is infinitely repeatable, extensible and, in theory, accessible without any degradation of quality. It’s this promise of failure which, in part, motivates our desire for redundancy and accessibility in our consumption of culture.

As our analog cultural artifacts continue to degrade and fail us we have three choices: allow them to degrade, maintain and conserve the analog or transfer the analog to a digital copy. As high profile efforts to conserve Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper have shown we aren’t ready to let our most precious cultural artifacts fade into obscurity no matter how controversial and problematic our efforts to conserve them may be. In both cases great effort was expounded to save these works from the ravages of time only to fall under considerable criticism from academics and art historians as to the accuracy of the restorative efforts as well as limit the public’s access to the restorations. In order to view The Last Supper one must book reservations in advance and can only stay for fifteen minutes. What if we had a digital image of such high resolution and a display of sufficient size which allowed us to view The Last Supper at its full size in such detail as to be nearly indistinguishable from the original unless you were mere inches away, which, consequently, is much closer than you would ever be allowed at the Santa Maria delle Grazie? Would that experience be sufficiently satisfactory as to preclude you from getting on a plane to Milan and seeing The Last Supper in person? I propose that it would.

If we could enjoy the greatest works of art, and even the not so great ones, at a scale and resolution that was sufficient to convey 99.9% of the experience of being in front of the real thing I think we would. This, of course, would render the museum as destination obsolete, but so what? Museums are problematic. They’re only open at certain times of day. You have to contend with other museum goers who may or may not exhibit basic etiquette and decorum. A particular work of art may not be on display at the time you choose to visit. Your legs get tired from walking around on all those marble and hardwood floors. And those are just problems the visitor encounters. What about the problems faced by the administrators? All those guards who must be paid, not to mention the cleaning crews, curators, conservators, store clerks and other support staff. Are they really necessary? If the experience of viewing art can be had without going to the museum is it worth the effort and expense to maintain the associated infrastructure?

We’ve already seen the preferred medium of delivery for music migrate from analog to digital realms in just over 100 years. The first commercially available gramaphone records began appearing in 1892. For the first time music aficionados had an option other than live performance with which to experience music. As recording techniques and delivery methods evolved through the 20th century, so did they ways we both experience and create music.

By the early 1900s shellac 78s allowed for greater fidelity and were relatively cheap to produce resulting in an available universe of sound recording that was both broad and deep which penetrated all strata of society. Unfortunately shellac is brittle and prone to shattering making it not the best method of preservation. Rationing during World War II spelled the end of the shellac 78.

Then along came vinyl long playing records and multi-track recording to magnetic tape which furthered this evolutionary process. Not only did it provide for the ability to record compositions of greater length and clarity, but the act of recording became an art in its own right. Instead of merely documenting unique, one time performance, musicians had the ability to layer and manipulate their recordings with a greater degree of sophistication creating stand alone works of art separate from the performance. Again, the breadth and depth of recorded music available increased exponentially.

As the production and delivery of recorded music has moved into the digital age it has transformed the ways in which we consume music. Just as the vinyl LP supplanted the shellac 78 and the compact disc has supplanted the vinyl LP, the compact disc has become a digital file-an objectless collection of computer code which resides inside of a computer until it is accessed by a device and the sound comes out of the speakers to the listeners ears. No longer do we have to contend with a skipping record or compact disc because the digital file remains uncorrupted by use. Play it once or 1000 times and it sounds the same.

There are those who will argue that a vinyl record sounds better than a CD and that MP3’s don’t hold up to CDs, etc. I don’t buy it. The flaws most people hear are generally the result of shoddy production and manufacturing. There are variables at play in all three formats that I won’t go into here which affect quality. But, when executed properly, I’m sure one could experience a recording in all three formats with only the people with the most highly trained ears being able to tell the difference.

Besides, the public has spoken. First there was the illegal file sharing bonanza that was Napster which showed that people would accept digital files as the standard format for music if the price was right. Then came Apple and iTunes store which solved the problem of distribution, which they continue to refine, quite elegantly. Now music fans have an even greater number of options through which to listen to, purchase and discover new music. Sites such as Pandora, last.fm and Rhapsody allow customizable listening experiences based on user input and preferences effectively replacing radio. Others, such as Wolfgang’s Vault, archive.org and dimeadozen.org, offer thousands of hours of live concert recordings either streaming or for download. Add to that the countless blogs which help users sort through it all and the internet offers limitless options to discover and consume music. All of this wouldn’t continue to be available if people didn’t use it (and if other people weren’t making money). And all of these options grow closer to the promise of allowing the curious access to every piece of music ever recorded. Many of those old shellac 78s have now become mp3 and other digital files and have become and will continue to be available to an audience far beyond the initial consumer base.

My point is that the delivery of music has evolved to the point where it’s possible for someone to carry thousands of hours of music in their pocket at a level of fidelity which is more than adequate for the average listener. CD’s and records have their advantages, but in terms of accessibility and portability (and arguably fidelity, but I won’t get into that here as I’ve digressed enough), digital can’t be beat. Digital files can be moved and duplicated with relative ease and it’s destroying the music industry.

Stymied by their inability to sell physical product to consumers, the music industry has been in a downward spiral for years. The major record labels are downsizing and laying off employees. Even independent labels are feeling the pinch. Within the last few months both Warner Entertainment and Touch & Go Records laid off significant portions of their staff, indicative of how far reaching this paradigm shift has become (the current economic climate not withstanding). Artists such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have shown that it’s possible for artists product without the assistance of record label of any sort. The music industry as we knew it prior to digital files and the internet will be no more within ten years.

Even the mediums of film and television have begun to feel the effects of the changes in the music industry. Cable companies offer more and more programming on demand. TV networks distribute programming on their own websites and others such as Hulu. Even Netflix has begun adapting by offering on demand streaming content through its website or set top boxes like the Roku. TiVo and other DVR devices allow for the creation of personalized archives of favorite shows and more and more those favorite shows are available for purchase in complete seasons on DVD or digital downloads. High Definition TV is rapidly replacing standard definition for good reason (watch golf in high def and tell me you don’t get sucked in, I don’t care how boring a sport is when it looks that good) allowing for the fidelity of a digital broadcast to approach that of film.

More and more technology is answering consumer demand and providing more bandwidth, better systems of display and cheaper digital storage options. As of this writing a search on Amazon for ‘external hard drive‘ resulted in a 1 terrabyte (that’s 1000 gigabytes) drive for just over $100 not including shipping. I’m honestly too lazy to compute how many hours/days/weeks of music and/or video that could hold but suffice to say it’s a lot. And cheap too considering that less than a year ago I paid around $400, which was cost, for a 500 GB drive. In less than a year the size doubled and the cost was quartered! That may be an extreme leap, but the trends towards faster internet connections, larger and higher resolution displays, better digital compression schemes and larger hard drives show no signs of reversing themselves. Why should they? With all of the digital content we now have to contend with, the accommodating hardware is becoming a necessity rather than a luxury. Clearly the barriers to storing all of this digital information are quickly disappearing the cost of storing our digital archives fall in line with those of storing our physical archives.

If the cinephile can have an enormous state of the art display on which to view movies, why can’t the art lover use the same display for high resolution digital images of paintings or drawings or sculpture or prints or whatever? In 2008 Panasonic introduced a 150 inch plasma display. The technology exists, it just has to be adapted for that purpose. There exist commercially available camera that shoot 160 megapixel images. Surely that must approach the size and resolution required for our display of The Last Supper once display sizes catch up? Within ten years, around the time the music industry takes its last gasps, those cameras will be commonplace and it will be possible to easily create digital images sufficient for this need.

Museums have already begun digitizing their collections. MoMA and Art Institute of Chicago, which are just two examples, both currently make significant portions of the collections available through their websites. ARTStor and Camio aggregate high resolution digital images from a variety of sources offering access to their archives for academic and scholarly purposes. All offer access to additional information about both the artist and art work beyond what is typically included on a gallery label or wall text, enriching the experience. MoMA’s recently redesigned site offers visitors the ability to create sets and collections from the museums holdings in effect allow visitors to self curate their own museum experience. Do you want to create a set the just includes Starry Night, Les Demoiselles D’Avignon and The Water Lilies? No problem. I wanted to use Vir Heroicus Sublimis but they don’t have an image of it online! I guess MoMA has more work to do than I thought and the system is far from perfect, but the basic tools are there.

This is a powerful concept since it essentially turns powers of curation over to anybody with access to the internet. Instead of creating a brief ‘greatest hits’ of MoMA’s collection I could create a set that includes an Art Nouveau poster, and a little Post Painterly Abstraction. It doesn’t necessarily make sense and it doesn’t have to to anyone but me. I realize I’ve now reduced curation to merely the grouping of art objects and instances based on personal whim, but if the intention is personal curation for display in ones home, does it need to be more than that? The answer is no. The more personal the experience of curation becomes, the less responsibility is required of the curator. For what is curation really other than the gathering of objects based on a set of criteria set by the curator? With the curator as collector the responsibility lies solely with the collector/curator. As an audience of one, they have only to satisfy themselves.

Historically art collectors have acted as a type of curator developing collections for a variety of reasons: aesthetic, financial, social status, etc, and these collections can serve any number of purposes. The price of entry is high and with it carries a certain responsibility for the artwork. By responsibility I mean responsibility for the care and preservation of the work of art. Once the transfer of ownership from artist or dealer to collector occurs, the collector now becomes the steward of that work of art, protecting it from degradation and preserving it while under the collector’s care. When collecting becomes digital two things happen: the price of entry is greatly reduced and responsibility to the artwork is eliminated. If everyone can participate in the collecting of art without consequence and there is no physical object to care for, does that devalue the role of the collector? Probably, but is it a role that we as a society need value? Is the collector anything other than a gatekeeper, controlling who has access to a work of art and when?

The idea of collector or institution as gatekeeper is where the role of collector, and by association the work of art, gains value. In the 2007 movie I Am Legend, Will Smith plays a scientist living in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan searching for a cure to the disease which caused the destruction of mankind. Mid-way through the film there’s a scene showing Smith’s character in the living room of his brownstone/laboratory/fortress. Hanging above the fireplace is van Gogh’s Starry Night, presumably taken from the now defunct MoMA and placed in Smith’s living room for his character’s enjoyment. The doors of the institution are literally open and Smith can theoretically take anything he wants and add it to the collection in his home. MoMA’s collection is now his collection and it’s worthless. The zombies who now roam Manhattan, and from whom Smith must defend himself should he venture out after sundown, don’t care about Starry Night or any other work of art for that matter. The institution is meaningless and Smith now finds himself the gatekeeper of a painting that will only regain its value should he find a cure for the zombie infection and restore humanity. Grant it this is gatekeeping of a different sort but there are some similarities. While the original Starry Night painted by Vincent van Gogh retains whatever value MoMA deems sufficient for insurance purposes, the digital copies made available on moma.org have no intrinsic value beyond the fact that they act as representations or stand-ins for the original.

But really, what right do we as visitors have to manipulate MoMA’s collection in this manner and what harm could come of it if we do? Apparently every right since the institutions are the ones opening up their collections in this manner and inviting us in to explore and manipulate as we see fit within the confines of the interface provided and understand that the digital images they’re making available are essentially value-less. If these images are of such sufficient resolution as to provide a highly comparable viewing experience to the original it doesn’t matter because they still retain the original and that’s what matters.

The challenge now becomes one of controlling access to the digital image. The music and film industries haven’t quite figured this out yet. Despite legitimate channels of distribution for digital content, there still exists a clandestine culture who wish to obtain this content without paying for it. Torrent trackers, peer-to-peer file sharing, Russian mp3 vendors all offer access to digital music files without the permission of the copyright holders. Even the art world has succumbed to this type of activity via Art Torrents which clandestinely distributes pirated gallery review copies of video and other digitally distributable artworks. Art lovers have clearly found the flaw in the current system of distribution and have begun to exploit that system. The closed nature of Art Torrents, not to mention the ambiguous nature of its current status, demonstrates the fact that those who administer this system do so with the knowledge that if it were available to anyone that the market for the type of work it makes available would collapse. Clearly the administrators of Art Torrents are cognizant of the slippery slope on which they tread. Just as Hollywood movies find their way to the internet before theaters, art is now circumventing the traditional channels of distribution (artist > gallery/dealer > collector/institution) and becoming available to the public, albeit in a much more limited fashion. It’s up to the institution as to weather or not they want to keep a tight reign on their intellectual property or succumb to the inevitable. So far it seems as though they are choosing to succumb.

Of course musical recordings and film/video are created with the intention of  being reproduced and distributed which is antithetical to the notion of a painting or a sculpture as an object unique to itself it the time and physical space it occupies. This is the one experience the museum will still be able to offer. The unmediated, up close and personal experience the museum offers will now likely appeal to a more select and rarefied type of art lover much like the music fan who purchases the limited edition for collectors only version of Radiohead’s latest album. In fact, Radiohead went one step further and allowed fans to set their own price for digital downloads, paying what they felt it was worth and in effect allowing the consumer to determine the value of their music. While this model requires a level of trust on the part of cultural producers, Radiohead have at least shown it to be successful. Could this model serve the museum? Perhaps. At the very least some type of tiered pricing/access system may required to facilitate consumer desire to access the original artwork. The more one pays, the greater ones access, not unlike the current concert going experience. The best seats in front are the most expensive with the ones further away being less so. And there’s still the guy sneaking in the recording device to bootleg the show and make it available on the internet the next day in case you can’t afford a ticket or are unable to attend because of a conflicting engagement.

An additional aspect to the gatekeeping role museums will continue to fill is that of determining how these digitized artworks are organized and presented to the public. Someone has to put all of this stuff into some kind of order that makes it both meaningful and findable. The current taxonomies of art history employed by institutions who make their collections available online do a fairly good job of making sense of the objects we humans make. But is it good enough? Artist names, art historical movements, media, time periods and countries of origin are all fine places to start, but what about more abstract concepts like red or thick paint or pastoral with which to organize? Music über-site allmusic.com includes ‘mood’ and ‘theme’ classifications for each entry in addition to more standard ’style’ and ‘genre’ classifications. Share the creation of the taxonomy with users and an incredibly rich and diverse set of possibilities opens up.

Objections to the digitization of artworks are absurd. Other forms of cultural production have existed, and even thrived, in digital form for years. Why should our paintings,  sculpture, works on paper, installations, what have you be any different? Yes they lose the Walter Benjamin approved ‘aura’, but is that all it’s cracked up to be these days? Does first hand experience matter that much? As I type this I’m listening to a recording of Karl Bohm conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D major. Would my understanding of Mozart or this symphony or even this particular performance be that different had I actually witnessed it? The recording is good. I can pick out the woodwinds from the strings, I can even get a sense of the sound in the concert hall. Had I attended this performance I don’t think it would necessarily influence my understanding of this piece of music much one way or the other. Sure I’d have the memory of the thrill of watching the orchestra perform, but that would fade with time and as I’ve shown, memories aren’t very reliable.

To return to my earlier example of a digitization of The Last Supper. I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to see The Last Supper in person. While it was being restored. With scaffolding in front of it. It was less than ideal. Would I like to see it in person again? Sure, but then I’d have to get on a plane and I don’t much like flying. Then I’d have to make a reservation and even then I’d only get to look at it for fifteen minutes. And it’s in Milan and I hate Milan! Images in books are OK, but they’re no subsititute. Current digital images found online are most of the time even worse. Because of the current constraints of the web images have to be shrunk down to postage stamp size and they’re just awful!

But, if I had one of those giant plasma displays and could call up an extremely high resolution image of The Last Supper and sit back on my couch with a nice beer and maybe even that recording of Mozart, now you’re talking! If I could examine all of my favorite paintings from the comfort of my own home I’d never leave! Imagine being able to see images every Vermeer (with the possible exception of the one stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) without having to travel. And I’m talking about high-resolution images displayed on state of the art display systems. In fifty years who knows what that will even look like. Televisions from fifty years ago now look archaic and impossibly clunky just as current displays will look fifty years in the future.

Pundits have been predicting the convergence of television and the internet for the last ten years. While that’s still likely a long way off (at least they come into your house through the same wire), the reality of one point of interaction for all media is growing closer each year. The internet is rapidly becoming the preferred method through which to consume music, film and television. In the not too distant future it will likely be the only method. We are seeing museums take the first tentative steps into this realm. Once the methods of delivery and presentation have been worked out it won’t be long before our museums will have a digital presence far exceeding that which they have currently. Experiencing are digitally will become the norm.

The physical museum will still have some form and play a limited function housing and protecting the precious original works of art. They will become vast storage vaults, archives of our analog past. People will still visit, but not in the numbers they do today and for likely very different reasons.

How far off is the intersection of available bandwidth and the means of production to facillitate the delivery and display of life size, high resolution images of a museums collection? I don’t have an answer to that question but I’d like to think it’s sooner than we think. Of course ten years ago I was convinced we’d be able to watch every movie, TV show, sporting event, etc on demand via either the internet or cable companies by now, so maybe I’m overly optimistic. But by 2050? Absolutely.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 9th, 2009 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Grad School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.