After discussion, we think that the digitizations of data allows for a better “storing of time” or storing experiences / history / creative work since it is more malleable due to the abstract nature of its storage (0 and 1s), thus allowing it to take multiple forms (image,sound,text). Kittler’s text mentions that the past means of storing data did not allow to capture the entirety of the intended information. Writing, for example, was biased towards the author of the text or left a significant amount of interpretation to the reader. Furthermore, Kittler’s text denotes a certain cyclicality with the notion of media. First, there was a non-necessity of the notion of media when writing was considered the only notable medium to store information. Today, Kittler and Weibel explain the erasure of the notion of media today, since all the ones that used to be autonomous (text/picture/sound) converge into a single one (the binary flow). Despite this, writing and the digital flow are vastly different.
Kittler also argues that the progressive standardization of information removes the author’s “soul” from the media content they’ve created, while Weibel explains that it seems to remove an artist’s “intellect” from their work. Finally, both Kittler’s and Weibel discuss the increasing accessibility of media channels. Kittler mentions that writing was first reserved for the very few, but became more homogenized. Weibel explains how digital media lead to a liberation of expression to all people, resembling what was seen during the Renaissance period. However, our discussion lead to us noticing that the distribution of content and of information on the Internet is becoming centralized. The masses turn towards growing online corporations for publication and consumption of content. We discussed how it makes the data flow more susceptible to censorship, and thus a reduction to its accessibility.
Dana Riachi, Xavier Champoux, Sol Pau, Rose-Marie Dion
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