Ah, you've inspired me! Another, better example: when silent movies started becoming sound movies. There was (notoriously) a four or five year period of adjustment. No one really knew how to make a sound movie because no one had ever really done so. New conventions had to be established, new production routines had to be developed, new understandings had to be arrived at between audiences and producers, new performers had to be found, etc etc. What should a gunshot sound like? How should lines be read? And of course the hyper-practical questions: which sound system should a theater or theater chain commit to, etc. If you look at the movies from that stretch, they're kinda fascinating, but seldom because they're any good. They're fascinating because they're like unwitting experimental movies -- you can sense talented people trying new things out and hoping a few of them will stick.

I'd argue (don't mind disagreement, but can also cite some impressive people who'd make the same argument) that, what with nearly everything going digital, we're going through something similar but much more pervasive and long-lasting. Partly because digi-tech is affecting nearly all the arts and media, not just (say) movies or publishing. It's a cross-media upheaval. And also because it affects systems on so many levels -- not just production but also distribution: how we discover, acquire and enjoy what we do. And because once things are turned into pixels they become malleable in ways they never were before, or that they were but only at enormous expense. A movie image, for instance: in the past, once you made it (acted, lit, photographed, timed it) -- that was it, there wasn't much further you could do with it. (A few trick-photography exceptions allowed for.) It wasn't revisable. These days, though, you can go in and brighten up the sky, erase someone, stamp and multiply people and turn them into crowds ... Something that used to be set in steel has been turned into pliable putty. It affects even traditional stuff like painting and poetry, although more on the level of community (you can find poets, classes, publications online, for instance) and distribution. Though I've heard of hotshot new painters whose setups include computers and scanners, too. They work out the image on screen, then "realize it" in paint on canvas. Weird, no? But there it is. And of course the media start to melt and blend and merge -- they're all pixels, so why not? A website's a fascinating thing that might include video, text, images, multiple pages, interactivity ... How to manage this?

So there's upheaval at the level of very basic things like conventions, as well as at such levels as (say) copyright, money, training (the teaching of graphic design is a much different thing than it used to be), hierarchies (designers are much more important today, for better or worse, than they used to be)...

I'd argue that this all got set off circa 1980 and that we're still in the midst of it. The scary/exhilarating thing is that it may never settle down -- the mutability of digital artifacts may mean that the old, anchored-down kind of stability of the pre-digital world may just be a thing of the past. What if it's all flow and change from now on?

Fun to try to keep track of, anyway. Thanks for pushing me on this, by the way. Whether I'm making sense or not, you've got my brain a little more active than it usually is. Eager to hear your impressions too, of course.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on October 24, 2003 11:16 AM

As a consequence, the cultural commentary that has struck me as most enlightening over the last couple of decades hasn't often come from critics and reviewers...It has often come instead from people thinking about econ, tech, cities, and business.

I agree with you, but I'm not entirely sure that the most enlightening cultural commentary ever came from critics or reviewers...think of Jacob Burkhardt's "The Civilization of the Renaissance."

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on October 24, 2003 02:19 PM

What's the deal, you and Friedrich both taking mulligans now? Can I have a do-over on my whole blog?

Posted by: Aaron Haspel on October 24, 2003 03:27 PM

Hey, isn't it part of the fun of the digital world that you can always modify and revise? God of the Machine, v.2.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on October 24, 2003 03:56 PM






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