User:Andre Castro/research/1.2/Canopy-draf01

1st Draft - still to organize, think through, rewrite - 02/02/2012

In this investigation I will like to take as a starting point blogs that offer their readers digitized music from long out-of-print vinyls and cassettes ranging from western XX century avant garde, to African productions on cassettes, to obscure new age soundscapes. Some examples at: http://www.avantgardeproject.org http://www.awesometapes.com/ http://crystalvibrations.blogspot.com/

These records, in their original formats, have gained an aura, an authority due to its rarity, which has turned them into collectors items, whose value has raised to similar quantities as original works of art, due to its statues of rarity. However when such an object is digitized it totally looses its economic value, to the point that often the owners of these rarities are happy to share them through their sites blogs.

It is curious to note that those who decide to share that musical rarities online do not resume themselves to this action. Besides making it available to anyone they include extensive contextual information on the music, edition and conditions under it was found. It is as if to acquire the "original" statues, the context for it to happen has to be created.

Sharing the digitized songs and information on these records works in two direction: on the one hand it extends the collective archive and on the other hand it creates the conditions for the value of their item to reach that of a original work of art.

As stated by Jaques Atalli music is prophetic, it senses what is still to happen. Perhaps this mode of exchange where digital sharing opens way for the physical object to gain the value of unique art piece will be a more widely spread practice in the future.