Alan Sondheim on Thu, 8 Nov 2007 21:32:14 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> Goodbye Classic ?




" Which sporting event telecast is destined for oblivion? The vast 
majority."

- Of course this is true for everything from email to all those objects on 
MOOs and MUDs, Fidonet and BBS materials, etc. It's also true for notes, 
early drafts, etc. A question that interests me - What is meant by 
oblivion?

This is fundamentally related to material deteriorations, lack of redund- 
ancies, playback technologies which have disappeared or no longer 
function. It's also fundamentally related to the glut of dead media (see 
the mailing list) which tends towards waste or landfill - or untethered 
media, which fascinate me, such as all those old and nameless 19th-century 
photographs one finds at flea markets. There's something uncanny about all 
of this, an uncanniness that exists only so long as partial identity 
remains (i.e. this is an 8-inch floppy, this is a tintype). Perhaps 
Barthes' punctum is increasingly characterized, not by presence within an 
image, but by non-presence within the haunted past.

- Alan






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