I’m (still) thinking about this whole issue of putting things into the world:
- Technology has meant that we are creating more, apparently ephemeral things, which take up less physical space, but more of our time (by their quantity).
- Things always take up time – but it was time with a particular purpose. For example, we would make time to go to galleries, which would then be dedicated to experiencing art, art-time for art.
- (Maybe we got frustrated if the art makes demands from outside of art. Somehow cheating us of our time).1
- These thoughts arose from time spent browsing through my blog reader, and not having enough time in general, but this general tendency towards less physical things and experiences is a good thing, maybe one day we will end up with no trace outside of some digital signature, and THAT reminds me of Flusser:
… to write is structurally the gesture of a historical and scientific being-in-the-world. Should this gesture fall into disuse, (and there are many symptoms at present which would seem to suggest this), the universe of history and science will fall into oblivion, or at least it will cease to be the universe we live in. Because that universe is a “fiction”, (the result of the technique of writing), and materializes only in the form of surfaces covered by letters. Thus if the art of writing is lost, it will not be missed by future generations. But for us, who are programmed by it and for it, not to be able to write means that life is not worth living.2
- [I ended up with too many "quoted" words which I converted to italics for a change. I always think words need further clarification, and putting them in quotes suffices to indicate this, and I somehow think this is then enough explanation.]
- Flusser, Vilém, The Gesture of Writing. Retrieved 16 June, 2009, from http://www.flusserstudies.net/pag/08/the-gesture-of-writing.pdf