Its the new year, we have just been through the holiday season where a lot of us took liberties to slothfully lay about. (don’t feel bad I did it too.) But now it’s the first blogoff of 2012, and lets face it we only have about 4 left before the world ends.
Anyway, what am I looking forward to in 2012? I am looking forward to this being the year digital died, music already died in 1959. Then Disco died (which really wasn’t music) in July 1979, then video killed the radio later that year in September 1979. Next to die, well its digital.
I look at what has been happening with a some of these technologies that have popped up to replace analogue entities, cd/digital downloads, ebooks, various ways to view works of art, polaroids ( anyone remember the magick of the polaroid??). Digital is really good at holding lots of data and being able to share everything very quickly. What it isn’t very good at is forcing someone to be in a place of reference of an experience. Though experiment… Think for a moment the last album you listened to on vinyl, do you remember where you were and how it made you felt?? Now think about the last thing you listened to on your iPod. Does it feel the same way? For me the process of sitting down and listening to music forces me to engage with the work, and give it meaning. It no longer becomes a simple consumable.
I am looking forward to 2012 and trying to find time for more analogue in my life, more meaningful experiences. Looking forward to meeting people for coffee, not talking on the phone/SMS; going to museums and spending time looking and interpreting art, not viewing pictures of art on the comp; buying physical books that if I want to read I must focus on the print and physically carry it around, not download it from the ether, where I got a discount, and hope to God that my privilege to read it doesn’t get revoked. (at least you have to pry a book from my cold dead hands.)
2012, To keeping the humanities analogue!
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Christian McLean 