What struck me in this weeks readings was the handling of decay and ‘dematerialization’ of sounds discussed in Alvin Luciers piece. It reminded me of how similar personal memories are subject to disintegration, the inevitably of fading of certain parts and amplification of other parts until they can be completely obliterated or forgotten if there isn’t some sort of structure or distinct outcome. And also the reason that we tell stories or memories to one person, but not another seems to function in an equally selective way as to who gets to have access to things that are important, or can only be understood in certain circumstances.
It seems natural that presentism of evaluating an objects impacts access to them, but that sounds have the added layer of needing secondary access through another device or transference makes them seem much more fragile. Like personal memories, if the person disappears, like the technology, they will be gone forever, whereas with an object, it will forever exist in some form, even in a less perfect way.
Thanks, Maris. You introduce some important new considerations: rather than aiming for universality and perpetuity — archiving everything for all time! — we have to recognize that some media, and some mediated events, are perhaps meant to be selectively distributed and ephemeral. And you remind us that even the human listener, removed in time from the original sonic event, is, in a way, an organic “playback device” 🙂