Mulch

Autumn Leaves got me thinking. As these things tend to do. Current observations are casting new light on old work. Here, some thoughts, on physical archives and tangible interpretations. 

What's the life expectancy of an idea, in an age of ephemeral media, the democratisation of knowledge and it’s proliferation through the internet.

All entities, digital or otherwise, are ultimately dependent on the longevity of their hosting or their capacity to proliferate as a meme.

It may be taken for granted that digital copies backup hard copies, but with digital natives, there is room yet for hard copies to back up the digital originals.

I speculate that we may yet see hard copy websites made available, in some form like the desktop rolodex animated gifs, but a bit more comprehensive. 

When the compulsion to back up is felt perhaps more keenly by us all, and in light of recent fires at the internet archive, I find myself asking: How long do things last? What makes something worth keeping?, Worth sharing? It’s capacity to remain pertinent?, To sustain new interpretations?, How can you measure interpretive potential? Is it like potential energy- like a spring- the more you invest in it the more it will yield?, Is there an SI unit for ambiguity or simplicity?

How pressing is the desire for tangible things in a digital age, the desire to look, to touch, to draw.

Looking recently at leaves lining the forest floor, each fragile coloured curl, stood for me as a web page, in a fleeting technicolor mulch of information, capable, we trust, of sustaining new growth.