17 July 2009
pictureville
My mentor Christopher James has reminded me of something he wrote about the changes in Photographic Technology. It connects well with some things I’ve been thinking about since Penland. An excerpt:
“It seemed that it happened without warning. The residents of the Upper and Lower Normal neighborhoods began to have trouble finding building materials to fix their homes. This, because more and more of the traditionalist building suppliers had stopped producing those materials in favor of those better suited to The Future… the modern, digitally dedicated, neighborhood.
At the same time, the traditionalists were rapidly being seduced by the alluring songs of the Sirens, the digital daughters of Achelous whose singing had lured many an “old salt” onto the proverbial rocks. Their tunes were seductive and it wasn’t long before the traditionalists were convinced that the loss of their old materials wasn’t that tragic. Who, they asked, wouldn’t jump at the chance to trade in their stinky labs for the antiseptic cleanliness of the desktop… and the pure dependable beauty of binary code strings over delicate negative films.”
At the same time, the traditionalists were rapidly being seduced by the alluring songs of the Sirens, the digital daughters of Achelous whose singing had lured many an “old salt” onto the proverbial rocks. Their tunes were seductive and it wasn’t long before the traditionalists were convinced that the loss of their old materials wasn’t that tragic. Who, they asked, wouldn’t jump at the chance to trade in their stinky labs for the antiseptic cleanliness of the desktop… and the pure dependable beauty of binary code strings over delicate negative films.”
Get the whole thing from Christopher’s website here.
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