[-empyre-] The archive.

[Lichty, Patrick]

Hello, Empyreans.

Sorry to be so quiet, but sometimes the physical trumps the virtual.
What i think is interesting about the concept of archiving digital media is that I get the feeling that we think it can be done for more tyhan maybe a decade or two.  We talk abotu databases, archives, emulation, with the technotopic belief that it will work out, when history tells us that it usually will not, or that there will be sever attrition due to obsolescence of hardware, software, procol changes, ad ainfinitum.

Yesterday (9/29) there was a piece on National Public Radio that talked abotu popular music produced before the digital age being far more long-lived than not.  Witht he advent of Chris Anderson's Long Tail, there is the profligate production of musics and media, but it wa reported that recording companies often refuse to archive mastertapes for sake of space and cost, and digital files, while perhaps near-ubiquiitous in sharing, become progressively rare after 5 years or so, if not sooner.

While I realize we are talkign about a more curatorial context in this discussion, I believe it begs the issue of the ongoing fantasy of non-ephemeral digital media, for which only Jon Ippolito's Variable Media Initiative gets close to fitting as a solution.

Now, that being said, if we look at interfaces and structures for easy access tot he archives that do remain, this is a great conversation in itself.

I also apologize if I stray fromt he subject...