User:ThomasW/thesis Outline

Thesis Outline(17.01.16)

Summary

”There is no identity without memory” (Baez,2008,p12 )

As a society we always seem to be looking for a new technical solution for knowledge and information storage and for this, we hope there is one magical final solution, one that will solve every issue. But easy solutions, creates there own problems, the perceived view on the stable nature of digital information differ from reality. Problems like old physical formats, lost or non functional machines, company’s that go bankrupt or file formats with no support in the future, changing user license, there is many points of failure.

When something happens in the digital world, it happens often quickly. There is a paradox that in a digital world, paper still can outlast digital.

”Material storage devices are supposed to preserve their contents faithfully. Human memories on the other hand, tend to select reconfigure and forget their contents-and we know from theory that this is the real achievements of human memory. Forgetting, in that sense, is not a defect, but an absolute necessary form of protection.” (Van Dijck,2007,online)

One of my past projects was the book “The Library of Babel” The project was about “Bit-Rot” also known as “Data Decay” with the starting point focussing on the obsolescence of floppy disks. Bit-Rot is something most people aren't aware of, but in a digital age this is a really interesting topic, as most people don't realise the how unstable digital storage is. “You can read a book that's 200 years old, but you can't read a computer file that was created five years ago” The format and size of the book is based on the dimensions of the 8-inch floppy disk with the main body copy from the short story “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luís Borges; a short story about a library which contains every story ever written and that ever will be written and how this is stored. I illustrated the book by corrupting it and its based on research of how corrupted files appear. Another past project is ”Who Needs Paper”, a digital photo-book project on the topic of whats left when a format is no longer needed. Behind every storage format there exist a larger and often unseen infrastructure. With the internet, there is large server in large buildings and with paper there is large paper factories but that got an impact on its surroundings. The project explores the tension of analog and digital in the story of paper manufacturing on a digital format as the “epub”, that is by many seen as the “closest to paper” one can get with digital.

”In 600, Niu Hung wrote a report in which he suggested it was important to keep multiple library copies in order to foil the destruction of written knowledge” (Baez,2008,p72)

Printed matter is physical and understandable for people, the nature of a computer file is not. Digital informations ephemerality is big, its generates as much as is deletes. When paper disintegrates, you can see it, when digital disintegrates, its just vanishes. One moment its there, the next its gone. Most people don’t have the knowledge of how or why.. people feel betrayed or let down by their technology that promises god and stable storage.

The digital material is physical one places.. as big server farms, burning coal or hydroelectric power, its have a big physical present, but is part is out of sight, so out of mind for people. The digital is mystic for people, it works so it works, but when they crash, disappear, gets deleted, its impact is just the same as if it where in the house that just burned to the ground.

Marketing makes us believe that storage is forever, that thin pieces of metallic foil, spinning disk or a “cloud' are there when we need them. That free endless storage is free and endless.. but even perceived solid and trustworthy services and companies vanish in the end..

”Digital media, through the memory at its core, was supposed to solve, if not dissolve, archival problems such as degrading celluloid or scratched vinyl, not create archival problems of its own. The limited lifespan of CDs will no doubt shock those who disposed of their vinyl in favor of digitally remastered classics, that is, if they still use CDs or an operating system that can read them. Old computer files face the same problem.” (Hui Kyong Chun,2008, p153-154)

So are there any solution to the problem, or do we even need one? One problem is maybe the amount of information out there, to have so much of something often can undervalues it. By having 1000 pictures from a trip, its maybe better to deleted 950 of them. And do we even need it all? What is the different in loss from the digital to the printed? Have it not always been a loss?

”Whether on hard drives or on centuries-old parchment, what appears to be lost is often only hidden. And the technology we use—both to record information in the first place and to recover it when it’s gone—reflect the fundamental values of our time. (Shawn,2014,online)”

Outline

Not If, But When

The Historical Perspective

To understand the present, we need to look back to the past.This chapter address past inventions that have directly influence current storage format and systems. From Gutenberg, Paul Odlet, Von Neumann “MEMEX” to magnetic, optical systems, solid state and “cloud” technologies. I will also address projects that where proposes as a great projects for the future but that never lived up to this promises, like the BBC Doomsday projects.

Where Excite To Announce

Where excite to announce is a common sentence seen and read in a lot of press statements. Its a sign that something is going to happen, and that is not good news for you memory’s, data and personal content. Its a statement often that appears on the final words from a lot of online company and startups. So what and who got responsibility when you content disappears with out your knowledge.

My Hard Drive Died, Along With My Heart

My Hard Drive Died, Along With My Heart #help is a post twitter user @KatShambaugh posted after here hard-drive died. Small but still genuine statement. The personification of technology is something that often common.. we name your cars, ships and so also your technology. But what happen with that relation when devices fail to keep your memory’s safe.

The Day That My Floppy’s Died

Since I started using a computer around the age of 5-6 years old I always been somehow hoarding information, its more a thing, my collection of odd bit of compute ephemeral at home will tell. But no one is immune to loss, this chapter will tell the issue of a personal side.. past, present and personal look on the topic and its future.

Bibliography

books, papers and notes

Dictionary

Dictionary for technical terms, slang and other words of interest.

Bibliography

• Van Dijck, José (2007) Mediated Memories in the Digital Age, United States of America, Stanford University Press
• Shawn, Martin (2014) The Age of Erasable Books, http://www.theatlantic.com [Online] Available: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/how-monks-remixed-technology-in-the-middle-ages/373956/ Accessed: 11/10/2015
• Baez, Fernando (2008) A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-day Iraq, Atlas & Co

• The Enduring Ephemeral, or the Future Is a Memory Author(s): By Wendy Hui Kyong Chun Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Autumn 2008), pp. 148-171 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/595632 . Accessed: 22/09/2015