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| Image Credit: Marcus Yam for The New York Times |
Also, there is a real difference in sentimentalizing something compared to being into something because its 'retro' or arcane, or even worse, ironic. If a 2001 plastic HP camera ever becomes a fetishized object, it will be due to the irony of it ever having existed in the first place. (Trust me, I will get to irony and why it must die [or at least fade] soon.)
Retro and archaic things may possess an air of beauty or idealism even by those who never experienced them first hand - think typewriters, art deco, and Renaissance Fair. To truly sentimentalize something though, the romanticized feeling for the object, memory or time must be personal, otherwise, it is merely fetishization.
With regard to hipsters and typewriters, perhaps the infinite monkey theorem can be evoked. One of them may produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. All kidding aside, the ending quote of the New York Times article says plenty: “One reason I type is it simply makes me feel closer to my words,”... “It’s like being a cabinetmaker. It’s like laying down the planks. This is the way it’s supposed to feel.” A 75 year old writer explaining the tangibility of writing via typewriter would hopefully express the surge in typewriter interest among young people. Perhaps it's a cry for a life that's real--A life no longer mediated by a fixed screen whose information and contents immediately vanish when turned off. Regarding low-res digital photography, perhaps an interest will be sparked when contemporary life becomes real again, and a further detached existence and obviously digital experience is desired.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where to begin, so I'll begin with your beginning. Shakespeare is nothing more than a monkey with a quill pen. At least two points to be made from here:
ReplyDelete1) Isn't a quill pen and handmade paper, or for that matter a wedge shaped tool and wet clay, 'closer' to words than a typewriter? And by your logic also the way it's 'supposed' to feel to be more 'real'? Let's be honest, isn't Google's voice recognizing transcription (when it works) closer to words. [Be aware this is a logocentric rabbit hole we journey down.]
The actual point I'm making is that there is a continuum of anachronistic tools that may presently used for recording language, and it is impossible if not ridiculous to decide which level is the most 'real'.
2) A 75 year-old person has every right to be sentimental for the tools of his/her youth. Anyone under the age of 33 (maybe older) most likely only appreciates such technology as a fetish object - an object that allows action without real interaction. [By real, here I mean contemporary, interpersonal and as immediate as possible. This shows many of my biases.]
3) As a Visual Artist, I can think of nothing more 'real' than light,whether it be natural or manufactured. (Blind artists are actually involved with tactility, not visibility.)
4) Interesting point about desiring imagery that does not relate to the normative standard of 20/20 vision as a form of escapism - I feel like maybe there is something to this with the history of Modernism and abstraction (which is funny because so many Modernist (and Post-Modernist) claim to be expressing some more real version of reality.
I guess that was at least four points.
What about the amish? They still have to make photograms. And painters will still have to use digital photography. There will still be a desire for the concrete representation.
ReplyDelete