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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

technology: from industrial to digital « Previous | |Next »
May 5, 2008

This is a classic example of old industrial technology:

BecherStrofoamplant.jpg
Bernd and Hilla Becher, Styrofoam plant near Cologne, Germany, 1997

The new technology is the internet and BitTorrent files---that gives us the capacity to “hyperdistribute” --- to send a single copy of a programme to millions of people around the world efficiently and instantaneously. In his post Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century on the the human network. Mark Pesce describes the far reaching implications of this technology. Referring to YouTube he says:

When the barriers to media distribution collapsed in the post-Napster era, the exhibitors and broadcasters lost control of distribution. What no one had expected was that the professional producers would lose control of production. The difference between an amateur and a professional – in the media industries – has always centered on the point that the professional sells their work into distribution, while the amateur uses wits and will to self-distribute. Now that self-distribution is more effective than professional distribution, how do we distinguish between the professional and the amateur? This twenty year-old doesn’t know, and doesn’t care.
There is no conceivable way that the current systems of film and television production and distribution can survive in this environment.

Pesce says that this is an uncomfortable truth, but it is the only truth on offer this morning. I’ve come to this conclusion slowly, because Bit Torrent and YouTube seems to spell the death of a hundred year-old industry with many, many creative professionals. H e adds that This means that the one-size-fits-all production-to-distribution model, which all of you have been taught as the orthodoxy of the media industries, is worse than useless; it’s actually blocking our progress because it is effectively keeping us from thinking outside the square.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:22 PM |