Starting Point:
Trying to imagine a zine for the digital age, inspired by the Copy Machine Manifesto exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.
What is the equivalent of a zine in the digital age?
Thoughts over the weeks:
---What is zine before digital?
- Carrier of art, essays, images, information and contacts, etc.
- Can be cheaply made, distributed, and propagated (with a copy machine).
- Internet before the Internet?
- physical, dense, and durable
---Digital equivalence?
USB sticks!!!
- Carries all file formats
- relatively cheap, abundant, and easily reproducible
- Can be shipped cheaply through post (or pigeons even)!
- light but information-dense, relatively durable (also works as keychains+++)
What to put on there though?
audio, video, interactive content (games, IFs, etc), or something that a printed zine can't do. =>
live performance recordings? =>
an archive of live art, and interviews would be cool=>
they are so precious let do an internet version too so more people can access it!
ISO Self-hosted streaming solutions:
music: sub/airsonic API (navidrome, etc), but most clients can only connect to one server (personal library) =>
Funkwhale (activity hub + subsomic)
video: jellyfin(same issue) => peertube
3d models/sculptures: three.js + usdz loader?
hypermedia: markup / html + embeded js (twine, unity for web, etc)?
Both funkwale and peertube of are on yunohost<3<3<3 =>
getting a rasberry pi + setup yuno =>
too lazy and burnt out to code
Procrastination -> Doubts
Too many formats to support=>
Downscale the project=>
what kinds of art are important to me?=>
flashback of getting burnt out hustling in the art scene=>
is this even necessary/good?
"I’ve found the absence of recording to be invigorating to the musical process and integral to long-form development. There is a both heightened presence and spiritual freedom knowing the moment cannot be repeated. And, as a producer and mixer, I write differently for record, so liberating myself from the medium has been useful in growing musically again. I know it has been a bit enduring over the years for some, as I post a lot of events of new music happenings but not many, if hardly any, chances to hear them online. But this has been the process. (flower emoji here) Seeing my world through scoring had become important for me again, as a way of communicating through the music in a way that did not privilege the intangible aural."
--Kara-Lis Coverdale
What is the point of documenting art?
E-waste to D(digital)-Waste?
Are we better off forgetting? => hyperthymesia, content consumerism/hoarding, deterritorialization of history
---How often do I look back on my phone's photo album?
---How often do I replace "read" with "bookmarked"?
---Am I having parasocial relationships with art, documentation, and knowledge?
Examples:
Instagram saved/follow vs viewing/connecting IRL, Youtube learning vs eating books, twitter/tiktok discourse vs organizing IRL, phone eats first, endless movie/book lists etccccc
Will I be creating another site for "ethical" consumerism of content?
Counter Examples:
https://www.nypap.org/oral-history/
https://lesbianherstoryarchives.org/
https://nyctransoralhistory.org/interviews/
the note app on my phone
...
What is the difference between a dataset and an archive?
Better Off Forgetting (in-progress) https://utorontopress.com/9781442610804/better-off-forgetting/
Abandoning the endless pursuit of objectivity/universality?
=> Birdseye view versus POV
---The Temporality of the Landscape https://www.jstor.org/stable/124811
---Radical Worlds: The Anthropology of Incommensurability and Inconceivability https://www.jstor.org/stable/3069219
Why I am archiving/organizing => Who am I archiving/organizing for?
Should the archival practice embody the practice of the subject matter? How?
---Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology https://www.jstor.org/stable/640395
Abandoning the endless pursuit of optionality/scalability?
Back to square one
To pay respect to the fragility of the liveness of performance art while making it more accessible
To make art not products for consumption but sites for socialization
=>
from top down to bottom up
planning for scalability, reusability, and permanence => appreciating transiency, redundancy, and death as a chance for learning and regrowth
Maybe forgetting is just another way of remembering?
Maybe being forgotten is an essential stage of growth?
Maybe projects/archives have lives/desires of their own?
...
aka
imma do what i feel like and figure out from there
