I’ve noticed a few of my more thoughtful friends start talking about moving away from digital in preference for analogue without fully being able to articulate why they desire to make the move.
Also seeing some art talk about the idea in different ways from unexpected sources like Post Malone’s song Internet’ and Aussie hip hop group Thundamentals on their song ‘I miss you’ ( I swear you might’ve been the one to write those lyrics).
As for me, I hope the trend towards analogue continues. For personal enjoyment and satisfaction, screens can’t compete with humble paper.
Thanks Gaz. As I hinted at in the essay, I think that a fair amount of my audience- seeing as they will have discovered me via twitter- are in an extremely online filter bubble. They think that the world is increasingly digital as they themselves live increasingly digital lives.
But if you step outside of that you will see that more people are craving the analogue life. I’m merely reporting an observation than predicting something that has yet to pass. It’s already here, at least to a degree.
And in regard to celebrities, I predict they will make more anti-internet moves. Firstly, they simply don’t need it as they have agents and publishers etc and secondly being quoted as saying they don’t use social media etc will increasingly make them both relatable and aspirational. Many of us would like to be able to live that way. I’m noticing the beginnings of this trend already, especially in 2020- the year when us hoi polloi have been forced to use computers more than ever via WFH.
Well done Tom. After reading your newsletter and comments, any contribution on my part would be a lightweight's effort. I will note that I find the discussions and sharing of ideas themselves to be analog in nature. They aren't "digital" bullet point counter-arguments or agreements. There is art in the discussion. Personally, it's what I miss most and I appreciate you and all contributors
That’s very kind of you to say Steve. The quality of these comment sections each week has been an unexpected bonus. I find them both gratifying and also enormously enlightening in their own right. And I always walk away with new ideas for future essays.
I definitely do think you should get involved though Steve. I suspect we are all rusty when it comes to actual civil discussion and if these essays become a weekly forum for such talk I would be thrilled.
On the subject of which I will add the title ‘The Lost Art Of Conversation’ as a topic for a future essay. Thanks for that inspiration.
This is an idea that I've been discussing with people a lot of late, ever since I came across it on your old twitter feed I think, and it's one that I wholeheartedly agree with.
In fact, for Christmas this year I got my father hardcover books (Cicero and Dalio - Principles), both of which he absolutely loved, and then for his birthday I went ahead and got him a proper vinyl player, with Coltrane - A Love Supreme (classic, and an easy choice), and Pearl Jam - Ten (another favorite of his, and an incredible rock album in it's own right).
The impact of the vinyl player on the front room was immediate, and in the weeks since getting it for him the room seems to have taken a new life honestly. He comes in, has dinner, and then goes in to the front room, with the fire on, tea, two biscuits, and puts on an LP.
Like you mentioned above, it's the tangible aspects of this that make it so appealing - he isn't just going in and turning on the music - he's somewhat symbolically taking the rest for himself through the physical process of putting on the vinyl.
For a textbook type-A workaholic, this has been huge for getting him to relax more in the evenings, which obviously delights me to no end - there is nothing better than seeing your family happy and enjoying life.
But what's been interesting is how he seems to have fallen into having a relaxation ritual he completes every evening, without really ever intending to. I'm going to try emulate the old fella and see if I can get myself to do the same.
With regard to the supremacy of real books over digital I agree, but I also find it hard to beat the ease with which one can highlight on kindle and save notes. As a completely obsessive note taker (to the point of being detrimental, as at times it prevents me from enjoying what I'm reading), the ability to highlight in 4 different colors (I have a system, which everyone I say it to laughs at), save them for reference, export etc. has become essential to my process of learning new material.
That being said, anyone who pirates fiction and reads it on a laptop/phone screen is probably a psychopath.
"You see, as much as I moan about tech, it is largely out of disappointment rather than knee-jerk Luddite reaction. Technology can be great but we use it for boring things that benefit people who themselves shun their own creations in their private lives."
True. Absolutely true, and I wish more people would realise this. Technology is at it's best when it's in the background, making life easier, not to be seen, not to be heard. It just does it's thing.
Automation is going to be the greatest gift to the artists of the world. Wilde mentioned it first in his essay on Socialism, about the ideal world being one where robots do all the work and humans spend all their time on the important business of creating art.
I'm not a socialist, but I think that's an idea that were likely going to see coming into fruition very soon (UBI anyone?), but whether or not this is a good thing is another debate altogether.
Anyways, loved the article, and I enjoyed your piece on Charlie Bubbles as well. It's one I'll have to check out this weekend. Looking forward to your next piece.
Once again, it seems that we are of the same mind Conor. First of all A Love Supreme is probably the greatest album of all time and I too have been trying to get my old man to learn to relax since he retired late last year.
And I do agree that digital books have their place. Fiction should always be analogue IMO (you’re not going to be taking copious notes) but for note taking digital is a great time saver. And I have no moral qualms about pirating a digital copy of a book I own physically so that I can cut and paste passages into my commonplace. Personally, I think physical books should come with download codes in the same way that new LPs have a piece of paper inside with a code to download an MP3 version of the record. I will look into this for my own releases.
Interestingly enough, I have been pondering writing an essay on automation and UBI but I will have to actually do some research on the logistics of UBI first. I’ll put it on the docket.
My degree in college was Computer Science and Software Entrepreneurship, which meant I completed a core collection of economics modules, all of which were completely useless - except that they lead me to start reading the books that explained why they were useless, namely Taleb, Hazlitt, Mises etc.
Seeing as I've now found myself on the side of the Bitcoiners and free-market supremacists, with some reservations naturally, I look forward to seeing you tackle the issues.
I’ve reserved a copy of Mises’ Bureaucracy and a very left leaning book on UBI from my library. Should be in soon. So my remedial take on automation etc will be appearing at some point. If nothing else I expect the comments to be lively!
That's the plan. Gonna keep em coming until I either run out of readers or run out of ideas- whichever comes first!
I realise now that in the first one of these I wrote I labelled it ‘Newsletter #001’ which I guess gives me the scope to write 999 in total. Which would take about 19 years. And if this thing keeps growing and generating interest I might just see if I can do that without burning out.
I was enamoured of iTunes and Apple Music for a loooong time, but came back to CDs for the reasons you've described. I do want to go vinyl, but having a family makes it harder to splurge on analogue pleasure. I did begin to write a list of what would be my first vinyl purchases: Superunknown, Grace, etc.
Maybe once I create and sell the digital education platform that is at present in the planning stages ... Then you'll just write an essay lambasting that. Ha! No, the digital platform of which I speak is only a box-ticking site; I had to deliver online learning during lockdown and it was largely a fool's errand.
I never really got digital books. Nothing like holding it in your hands.
I hear what you’re saying Caleb. And I think CDs are now underrated as a medium. And they are dirt cheap for the most part.
When I got back on the analogue train after the enforced layoff mentioned above I started by quickly amassing a core collection of CDs. And then with Christmas or a birthday or a windfall I would acquire some choice albums on vinyl.
With the digital mindset we think we have to rapidly gain a massive collection. But there is something special about only having a few dozen prized album that you listen to exclusively. (No YT, no Spotify). Record collecting is a long term game.
Re: the digital ed platform- I think digital is horses for courses. For some it’s fantastic. And more power to them. But digital is all you hear about and I know there are plenty like me who either want or need to hear the opposing viewpoint.
You did not mention the fact that not owning your products (merely "renting" their digital form) means someone else has a right of life and death upon them: As we've seen recently, Amazon editing or deleting books from their Seattle HQ and your very own (purchased) copy that you're currently reading in Nice, France gets purged from your Kindle. Same with Music providers, Netflix etc. People who give a damn about what they are consuming begin to realize the danger in that - inherent to the digital form.
On a broader scale, this is also an issue of identity: imagine if your average Joe's phone, computer and external hard drives were wiped out. What would be left ? No more music, movies, books, but also no more pictures, memories, correspondance; who takes pictures on film anymore? Who writes letters? If your digital devices were lost (and trust me, I have countless stories of crashed HDDs and stolen phones with no/partial cloud backups), would there still be any footprints of your life left ? If that doesn't frightens you, you haven't thought about it enough.
And a great response by you as always Sebastien. Much appreciated.
You touch on an unspoken aspect of digital here: See, I’ve never had my house be flooded or burn down (thank you God) but I have had a good number of desktops, laptops and hard drives die over the years. So which one is really the more fragile way of storing information?
And yes the idea of analogue as a means of preserving legacy is a vital one. I can leaf through family photo albums and letters and I think it is important to pass such things down.
Also, if I am going to be true to my writerly aspirations/pretentions surely I need to leave some source materials for the future biographer- journals and letters and drafts and such.
It surprises me that the social media big shots don’t talk in these terms. Actually scratch that, it doesn’t surprise me at all.
It is frightening! After my phone was stolen last summer, I've started printing hard copies of photographs... It is just serves us so well... not a music guy but I do buy printed copies of books... :)
I have been meaning to take my memory stick full of photography’s to get printed at the shop in town for ages. Need to get round to it.
My current thing is to print all of my writing and correspondence and put it in ring binders. And then delete the files from my computer leaving only a USB stick back up.
I have spent far too much time sorting through folders on a laptop in my life. It adds up. Same as all that time that you can spend scrolling through the Netflix menu.
Turns out these essays by a contender for a England’s Laziest Man can actually make you more efficient. Funny that.
Loyal opposition checking in here—I'm very drawn to this idea, but in the interest of accuracy I'd like to complicate it a bit.
Allow me to start by introducing two examples of younger artists that I find compelling, original, and brilliant: 100 gecs (the song "Money Machine" is a good place to start) and Tamsyn Muir (the book Gideon the Ninth is the best place to start). 100 gecs is a musical duo who compose and record almost entirely via the internet. Muir is a gifted novelist whose senses of genre convention and plotting were formed in online fan fiction communities. One certainly *can* purchase their works on vinyl and in hardback, but it's weird; it's weird because these works were incubated in a digital matrix in a way that just wasn't the case with Montaigne, Miles, Moby Dick, Meshuggah, etc. The mental mulch and compost in which they've grown has been digitalized and networked for decades. They may represent a brand new fresh wave of culture like nothing that's ever been seen before. I'm old enough these days to complain sincerely about "kids these days", but at the same time I want to recognize that there are geniuses among them.
What complicates a simple "the future is analogue" is that these born-digital artists make born-digital works that are unique, bespoke and crafted with care. They exist in and are formed by the brutish, homogenizing digital environment that we all love to gripe about so much, and yet that familiar blazing flame of human spirit and creativity shines through them. Will they make it to any kind of canonical status in a coming Renaissance, and if so, will it be in physical form? I think it's too soon to tell for sure, but it's likely.
Anyway, bring it on, I say! I am all for an analogue future, in which quality and taste endure and are expressed in fully physical form, but I also expect the content of the culture of the future to have a wired spirit.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment Andrew. Always nice (and sadly rare) to encounter some respectful, grown up disagreement on the internet.
I like digitally made and digitally disseminated art (electronic music, pixel art etc) but I think that without the analogue component it disappears. In fact, the main inspiration for writing this piece was all of the weird and wonderful electronic music you can find on bandcamp and how these producers make money by selling vinyl pressings and *cassette* tapes in 2020.
My prediction is this idea will spread to other mediums. So yes digital is a vital part of this process- well all find each other online- but as the internet can be a lonely and toxic place I believe that people increasingly want to move things *offline* whether it be via a real life meeting or buying/selling a real life product.
All of the previous technical boundaries to this are now gone. Hence the general tone of optimism in these essays in spite of the doom and gloom you may here elsewhere.
I get what you're saying, but I sense that you and Thomas are not talking about the same thing. I totally agree that the digital culture has created a new generation of artists bound to the "digital matrix" they were born from (Personally I'd prefer the term digital crucible). And that consequently, the digital form is a better form of expression than the analog.
But what about transmission? Legacy? Preservation? The digital medium is not made for this; it is made for consumption, easy-sharing, efficiency etc. But not for longevity. The Internet expands exponentially; 99% of the entire internet in 3 years from now doesnt exist yet. An article or a video you used to find in two clicks 2 years ago is now almost impossible to find back. I am not a gambling man like Thomas, but I'm willing to bet that if these artists "stay digital" they will eventually be forgotten and vanished. Either you find a way to tear the digital veil and set foot into reality, or you end up buried under terrabytes of queries. The analog form can offer you a form a shelter and respite: something tangible to build upon.
Thanks for this Sebastien. In a sense the whole internet is an infinity scroll, not just social media. You hop into it one day and take in the sights but the next day it is different, like Heraclitus’ river.
And for people like me who are of a more perfectionist/ completist bent this is overwhelming, hence the need for long spells of time away from the internet.
Increasingly I find myself trying to make the digital analogue via either printing out or even more extreme- burning YT mixes to mp3 and then converting that to CD or tape. There’s something poetic and strange about imagining that at some point the vid may get deleted and I will be the only one to own it in the form of a humble tape.
This was one of the inspirations behind writing this essay.
Hey Sebastien, thanks for the comment. I completely agree as far as preservation goes. I am a professionally credentialed librarian, and I can report that the state of the art in preserving important digital materials is, in essence, "make lots of copies of it because digital storage is very fragile, and hope that the format it's in doesn't go obsolete like almost every digital format ever invented has." It's a rough scene. Even preserving digital materials for the time of a single human generation is a significant challenge. In the analog world, though, I can go to my grandparents' house and browse through the collection of LPs that my dad and uncles bought in the 1970s and 1980s, and they still work.
Sorry for asking this, but here are a few questions regarding preservation:
1. What is your take on paper mediums in hot and humid climates? Are there any good alternatives? Print-outs and news clipping has to be laminated all the time in more sub-tropical climates.
2. Is there an analogue to Zotero? LogSeq has the manaul Zettelkasten (index cards based personal wiki) since books are very unappealing for those with an apatite for thought-Legos.
‘Curation’ is a term you hear more and more as the internet continues its exponential growth. We are drowning in info and so I suspect librarian skills may well prove to be increasingly useful.
I’m glad that these essays have attracted someone from then library world. My kinda people. Spread the good news among your librarian circle!
Thanks again Andrew, this whole comment thread was fantastic.
I have no objection to a good pun, Alicia. Just as I have no objection to people using digital devices in a purposeful way or to work around a specific issue or problem they have.
Self-knowledge, as always, is the name of the game. And your comment shows that in spades. Nothing is one size fits all.
For me these essays are a means of showing my own slow groping towards some semblance of self knowledge so that people can see the *process* not necessarily just crib from the conclusions.
But that’s the kind of nuance that people have become deskilled in. Hence why I- or I should say *we*- are doing this.
I think you’re on to something here, Tom.
I’ve noticed a few of my more thoughtful friends start talking about moving away from digital in preference for analogue without fully being able to articulate why they desire to make the move.
Also seeing some art talk about the idea in different ways from unexpected sources like Post Malone’s song Internet’ and Aussie hip hop group Thundamentals on their song ‘I miss you’ ( I swear you might’ve been the one to write those lyrics).
As for me, I hope the trend towards analogue continues. For personal enjoyment and satisfaction, screens can’t compete with humble paper.
Thanks Gaz. As I hinted at in the essay, I think that a fair amount of my audience- seeing as they will have discovered me via twitter- are in an extremely online filter bubble. They think that the world is increasingly digital as they themselves live increasingly digital lives.
But if you step outside of that you will see that more people are craving the analogue life. I’m merely reporting an observation than predicting something that has yet to pass. It’s already here, at least to a degree.
And in regard to celebrities, I predict they will make more anti-internet moves. Firstly, they simply don’t need it as they have agents and publishers etc and secondly being quoted as saying they don’t use social media etc will increasingly make them both relatable and aspirational. Many of us would like to be able to live that way. I’m noticing the beginnings of this trend already, especially in 2020- the year when us hoi polloi have been forced to use computers more than ever via WFH.
Thanks again for stopping by Gaz.
Tom.
Well done Tom. After reading your newsletter and comments, any contribution on my part would be a lightweight's effort. I will note that I find the discussions and sharing of ideas themselves to be analog in nature. They aren't "digital" bullet point counter-arguments or agreements. There is art in the discussion. Personally, it's what I miss most and I appreciate you and all contributors
That’s very kind of you to say Steve. The quality of these comment sections each week has been an unexpected bonus. I find them both gratifying and also enormously enlightening in their own right. And I always walk away with new ideas for future essays.
I definitely do think you should get involved though Steve. I suspect we are all rusty when it comes to actual civil discussion and if these essays become a weekly forum for such talk I would be thrilled.
On the subject of which I will add the title ‘The Lost Art Of Conversation’ as a topic for a future essay. Thanks for that inspiration.
Tom.
This is an idea that I've been discussing with people a lot of late, ever since I came across it on your old twitter feed I think, and it's one that I wholeheartedly agree with.
In fact, for Christmas this year I got my father hardcover books (Cicero and Dalio - Principles), both of which he absolutely loved, and then for his birthday I went ahead and got him a proper vinyl player, with Coltrane - A Love Supreme (classic, and an easy choice), and Pearl Jam - Ten (another favorite of his, and an incredible rock album in it's own right).
The impact of the vinyl player on the front room was immediate, and in the weeks since getting it for him the room seems to have taken a new life honestly. He comes in, has dinner, and then goes in to the front room, with the fire on, tea, two biscuits, and puts on an LP.
Like you mentioned above, it's the tangible aspects of this that make it so appealing - he isn't just going in and turning on the music - he's somewhat symbolically taking the rest for himself through the physical process of putting on the vinyl.
For a textbook type-A workaholic, this has been huge for getting him to relax more in the evenings, which obviously delights me to no end - there is nothing better than seeing your family happy and enjoying life.
But what's been interesting is how he seems to have fallen into having a relaxation ritual he completes every evening, without really ever intending to. I'm going to try emulate the old fella and see if I can get myself to do the same.
With regard to the supremacy of real books over digital I agree, but I also find it hard to beat the ease with which one can highlight on kindle and save notes. As a completely obsessive note taker (to the point of being detrimental, as at times it prevents me from enjoying what I'm reading), the ability to highlight in 4 different colors (I have a system, which everyone I say it to laughs at), save them for reference, export etc. has become essential to my process of learning new material.
That being said, anyone who pirates fiction and reads it on a laptop/phone screen is probably a psychopath.
"You see, as much as I moan about tech, it is largely out of disappointment rather than knee-jerk Luddite reaction. Technology can be great but we use it for boring things that benefit people who themselves shun their own creations in their private lives."
True. Absolutely true, and I wish more people would realise this. Technology is at it's best when it's in the background, making life easier, not to be seen, not to be heard. It just does it's thing.
Automation is going to be the greatest gift to the artists of the world. Wilde mentioned it first in his essay on Socialism, about the ideal world being one where robots do all the work and humans spend all their time on the important business of creating art.
I'm not a socialist, but I think that's an idea that were likely going to see coming into fruition very soon (UBI anyone?), but whether or not this is a good thing is another debate altogether.
Anyways, loved the article, and I enjoyed your piece on Charlie Bubbles as well. It's one I'll have to check out this weekend. Looking forward to your next piece.
Once again, it seems that we are of the same mind Conor. First of all A Love Supreme is probably the greatest album of all time and I too have been trying to get my old man to learn to relax since he retired late last year.
And I do agree that digital books have their place. Fiction should always be analogue IMO (you’re not going to be taking copious notes) but for note taking digital is a great time saver. And I have no moral qualms about pirating a digital copy of a book I own physically so that I can cut and paste passages into my commonplace. Personally, I think physical books should come with download codes in the same way that new LPs have a piece of paper inside with a code to download an MP3 version of the record. I will look into this for my own releases.
Interestingly enough, I have been pondering writing an essay on automation and UBI but I will have to actually do some research on the logistics of UBI first. I’ll put it on the docket.
Pleasure to hear from you as always Conor.
Tom.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it!
My degree in college was Computer Science and Software Entrepreneurship, which meant I completed a core collection of economics modules, all of which were completely useless - except that they lead me to start reading the books that explained why they were useless, namely Taleb, Hazlitt, Mises etc.
Seeing as I've now found myself on the side of the Bitcoiners and free-market supremacists, with some reservations naturally, I look forward to seeing you tackle the issues.
All the best.
I’ve reserved a copy of Mises’ Bureaucracy and a very left leaning book on UBI from my library. Should be in soon. So my remedial take on automation etc will be appearing at some point. If nothing else I expect the comments to be lively!
Cheers.
Tom.
Really appreciate this essay 👍 just keep them coming, Thomas!
That's the plan. Gonna keep em coming until I either run out of readers or run out of ideas- whichever comes first!
I realise now that in the first one of these I wrote I labelled it ‘Newsletter #001’ which I guess gives me the scope to write 999 in total. Which would take about 19 years. And if this thing keeps growing and generating interest I might just see if I can do that without burning out.
Thanks for getting in touch Kartik.
Tom.
I was enamoured of iTunes and Apple Music for a loooong time, but came back to CDs for the reasons you've described. I do want to go vinyl, but having a family makes it harder to splurge on analogue pleasure. I did begin to write a list of what would be my first vinyl purchases: Superunknown, Grace, etc.
Maybe once I create and sell the digital education platform that is at present in the planning stages ... Then you'll just write an essay lambasting that. Ha! No, the digital platform of which I speak is only a box-ticking site; I had to deliver online learning during lockdown and it was largely a fool's errand.
I never really got digital books. Nothing like holding it in your hands.
I hear what you’re saying Caleb. And I think CDs are now underrated as a medium. And they are dirt cheap for the most part.
When I got back on the analogue train after the enforced layoff mentioned above I started by quickly amassing a core collection of CDs. And then with Christmas or a birthday or a windfall I would acquire some choice albums on vinyl.
With the digital mindset we think we have to rapidly gain a massive collection. But there is something special about only having a few dozen prized album that you listen to exclusively. (No YT, no Spotify). Record collecting is a long term game.
Re: the digital ed platform- I think digital is horses for courses. For some it’s fantastic. And more power to them. But digital is all you hear about and I know there are plenty like me who either want or need to hear the opposing viewpoint.
Hence these essays.
Thanks for getting in touch Caleb.
Tom.
Great article here Thomas!
You did not mention the fact that not owning your products (merely "renting" their digital form) means someone else has a right of life and death upon them: As we've seen recently, Amazon editing or deleting books from their Seattle HQ and your very own (purchased) copy that you're currently reading in Nice, France gets purged from your Kindle. Same with Music providers, Netflix etc. People who give a damn about what they are consuming begin to realize the danger in that - inherent to the digital form.
On a broader scale, this is also an issue of identity: imagine if your average Joe's phone, computer and external hard drives were wiped out. What would be left ? No more music, movies, books, but also no more pictures, memories, correspondance; who takes pictures on film anymore? Who writes letters? If your digital devices were lost (and trust me, I have countless stories of crashed HDDs and stolen phones with no/partial cloud backups), would there still be any footprints of your life left ? If that doesn't frightens you, you haven't thought about it enough.
And a great response by you as always Sebastien. Much appreciated.
You touch on an unspoken aspect of digital here: See, I’ve never had my house be flooded or burn down (thank you God) but I have had a good number of desktops, laptops and hard drives die over the years. So which one is really the more fragile way of storing information?
And yes the idea of analogue as a means of preserving legacy is a vital one. I can leaf through family photo albums and letters and I think it is important to pass such things down.
Also, if I am going to be true to my writerly aspirations/pretentions surely I need to leave some source materials for the future biographer- journals and letters and drafts and such.
It surprises me that the social media big shots don’t talk in these terms. Actually scratch that, it doesn’t surprise me at all.
Cheers, Sebastien
Tom.
It is frightening! After my phone was stolen last summer, I've started printing hard copies of photographs... It is just serves us so well... not a music guy but I do buy printed copies of books... :)
I have been meaning to take my memory stick full of photography’s to get printed at the shop in town for ages. Need to get round to it.
My current thing is to print all of my writing and correspondence and put it in ring binders. And then delete the files from my computer leaving only a USB stick back up.
I have spent far too much time sorting through folders on a laptop in my life. It adds up. Same as all that time that you can spend scrolling through the Netflix menu.
Turns out these essays by a contender for a England’s Laziest Man can actually make you more efficient. Funny that.
Tom.
Loyal opposition checking in here—I'm very drawn to this idea, but in the interest of accuracy I'd like to complicate it a bit.
Allow me to start by introducing two examples of younger artists that I find compelling, original, and brilliant: 100 gecs (the song "Money Machine" is a good place to start) and Tamsyn Muir (the book Gideon the Ninth is the best place to start). 100 gecs is a musical duo who compose and record almost entirely via the internet. Muir is a gifted novelist whose senses of genre convention and plotting were formed in online fan fiction communities. One certainly *can* purchase their works on vinyl and in hardback, but it's weird; it's weird because these works were incubated in a digital matrix in a way that just wasn't the case with Montaigne, Miles, Moby Dick, Meshuggah, etc. The mental mulch and compost in which they've grown has been digitalized and networked for decades. They may represent a brand new fresh wave of culture like nothing that's ever been seen before. I'm old enough these days to complain sincerely about "kids these days", but at the same time I want to recognize that there are geniuses among them.
What complicates a simple "the future is analogue" is that these born-digital artists make born-digital works that are unique, bespoke and crafted with care. They exist in and are formed by the brutish, homogenizing digital environment that we all love to gripe about so much, and yet that familiar blazing flame of human spirit and creativity shines through them. Will they make it to any kind of canonical status in a coming Renaissance, and if so, will it be in physical form? I think it's too soon to tell for sure, but it's likely.
Anyway, bring it on, I say! I am all for an analogue future, in which quality and taste endure and are expressed in fully physical form, but I also expect the content of the culture of the future to have a wired spirit.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment Andrew. Always nice (and sadly rare) to encounter some respectful, grown up disagreement on the internet.
I like digitally made and digitally disseminated art (electronic music, pixel art etc) but I think that without the analogue component it disappears. In fact, the main inspiration for writing this piece was all of the weird and wonderful electronic music you can find on bandcamp and how these producers make money by selling vinyl pressings and *cassette* tapes in 2020.
My prediction is this idea will spread to other mediums. So yes digital is a vital part of this process- well all find each other online- but as the internet can be a lonely and toxic place I believe that people increasingly want to move things *offline* whether it be via a real life meeting or buying/selling a real life product.
All of the previous technical boundaries to this are now gone. Hence the general tone of optimism in these essays in spite of the doom and gloom you may here elsewhere.
Thanks for getting in touch Andrew.
Tom.
Hey Andrew, mind if I join in ?
I get what you're saying, but I sense that you and Thomas are not talking about the same thing. I totally agree that the digital culture has created a new generation of artists bound to the "digital matrix" they were born from (Personally I'd prefer the term digital crucible). And that consequently, the digital form is a better form of expression than the analog.
But what about transmission? Legacy? Preservation? The digital medium is not made for this; it is made for consumption, easy-sharing, efficiency etc. But not for longevity. The Internet expands exponentially; 99% of the entire internet in 3 years from now doesnt exist yet. An article or a video you used to find in two clicks 2 years ago is now almost impossible to find back. I am not a gambling man like Thomas, but I'm willing to bet that if these artists "stay digital" they will eventually be forgotten and vanished. Either you find a way to tear the digital veil and set foot into reality, or you end up buried under terrabytes of queries. The analog form can offer you a form a shelter and respite: something tangible to build upon.
Thanks for this Sebastien. In a sense the whole internet is an infinity scroll, not just social media. You hop into it one day and take in the sights but the next day it is different, like Heraclitus’ river.
And for people like me who are of a more perfectionist/ completist bent this is overwhelming, hence the need for long spells of time away from the internet.
Increasingly I find myself trying to make the digital analogue via either printing out or even more extreme- burning YT mixes to mp3 and then converting that to CD or tape. There’s something poetic and strange about imagining that at some point the vid may get deleted and I will be the only one to own it in the form of a humble tape.
This was one of the inspirations behind writing this essay.
Tom.
Hey Sebastien, thanks for the comment. I completely agree as far as preservation goes. I am a professionally credentialed librarian, and I can report that the state of the art in preserving important digital materials is, in essence, "make lots of copies of it because digital storage is very fragile, and hope that the format it's in doesn't go obsolete like almost every digital format ever invented has." It's a rough scene. Even preserving digital materials for the time of a single human generation is a significant challenge. In the analog world, though, I can go to my grandparents' house and browse through the collection of LPs that my dad and uncles bought in the 1970s and 1980s, and they still work.
Sorry for asking this, but here are a few questions regarding preservation:
1. What is your take on paper mediums in hot and humid climates? Are there any good alternatives? Print-outs and news clipping has to be laminated all the time in more sub-tropical climates.
2. Is there an analogue to Zotero? LogSeq has the manaul Zettelkasten (index cards based personal wiki) since books are very unappealing for those with an apatite for thought-Legos.
‘Curation’ is a term you hear more and more as the internet continues its exponential growth. We are drowning in info and so I suspect librarian skills may well prove to be increasingly useful.
I’m glad that these essays have attracted someone from then library world. My kinda people. Spread the good news among your librarian circle!
Thanks again Andrew, this whole comment thread was fantastic.
Tom.
I have no objection to a good pun, Alicia. Just as I have no objection to people using digital devices in a purposeful way or to work around a specific issue or problem they have.
Self-knowledge, as always, is the name of the game. And your comment shows that in spades. Nothing is one size fits all.
For me these essays are a means of showing my own slow groping towards some semblance of self knowledge so that people can see the *process* not necessarily just crib from the conclusions.
But that’s the kind of nuance that people have become deskilled in. Hence why I- or I should say *we*- are doing this.
Thanks for getting in touch as always.
Tom.