All around us technology is moving at a breakneck pace. The new is old before it’s out of the box and we all go around the product cycle chasing after the tip of the razor on the cutting edge. There’s even a sliding rule of tech-ability and elitism measuring both an individual’s success and cool by their up to the minute possession of the latest and greatest gadgets. If you have the last version of the newest device, you’re a target for scorn in tech circles.
And yet in the midst of all this endless chasing after the wind, there has emerged a new “lo-fi” sensibility. No, I’m not talking about the old “lo-fi” followers like myself, clinging to a vanishing analog, kicking and screaming as we are dragged on to the digital matrix. The old lo-fi followers are integrating into the new, and with that comes a world that in many ways looks similar to the old.
Here are some examples. When television was in its infancy, both the devices and the programming looked pretty primitive compared to today’s standards. The screens were small, the content fuzzy and some folks were just puzzled as to why anyone would want to sit in front of a little box and stare at the grey pictures when they could go to the movie theater and see a full color show that was larger than life.
Now compare that to the way people today stare at comparably small screens on their computer laptops and desktops watching hour after hour of sub-par video as some folks wonder “why would you want do that when for a few thousand dollars you can get yourself a big screen with HD and surround sound?”
In the 1950’s transistor radios began showing up allowing users to share hand held music wherever the signal reached them. Although a marvel, the tradeoff was a relatively smaller output in sound and the loss of tonal qualities that were more and more available in the new “stereophonic” recordings.
Now consider the cellular phone as a replacement. You can download songs right to your phone and hold the music in your hand in the same way teenagers of the fifties and sixties did sharing the latest tunes blasting crudely from an even smaller and sometimes less sophisticated speaker than the transistor radio.
And then there’s home movies. When 8mm movie cameras first showed up, they gave people the ability to capture their memories on the spot with real movement and then later, (gasp) color! Forget the fact that there was no sound and the images were often washed out or grainy. You had your own movie camera and sharing the family vacation would never be a static event again.
And today many digital still camera and cell phones also display a primitive if not reminiscent look to those old home movies. Sure, for not much money you can get yourself a pretty good little digital video set up, but I’m talking now about the devices that were intended for quick clips, many without sound. Some of the first digital cameras had a video quality that has become today’s old home movies.
So there you have it. What’s new is old. And the old is suddenly new again. And the lo becomes hi, and the so called hi looks lo again. Oh well, I guess the most important thing isn’t the devices we use, but how we use them. What we capture and record. We may look back and laugh at the way media is transferred, but in the end it’s all about the story we’re telling about ourselves.
And yet in the midst of all this endless chasing after the wind, there has emerged a new “lo-fi” sensibility. No, I’m not talking about the old “lo-fi” followers like myself, clinging to a vanishing analog, kicking and screaming as we are dragged on to the digital matrix. The old lo-fi followers are integrating into the new, and with that comes a world that in many ways looks similar to the old.
Here are some examples. When television was in its infancy, both the devices and the programming looked pretty primitive compared to today’s standards. The screens were small, the content fuzzy and some folks were just puzzled as to why anyone would want to sit in front of a little box and stare at the grey pictures when they could go to the movie theater and see a full color show that was larger than life.
Now compare that to the way people today stare at comparably small screens on their computer laptops and desktops watching hour after hour of sub-par video as some folks wonder “why would you want do that when for a few thousand dollars you can get yourself a big screen with HD and surround sound?”
In the 1950’s transistor radios began showing up allowing users to share hand held music wherever the signal reached them. Although a marvel, the tradeoff was a relatively smaller output in sound and the loss of tonal qualities that were more and more available in the new “stereophonic” recordings.
Now consider the cellular phone as a replacement. You can download songs right to your phone and hold the music in your hand in the same way teenagers of the fifties and sixties did sharing the latest tunes blasting crudely from an even smaller and sometimes less sophisticated speaker than the transistor radio.
And then there’s home movies. When 8mm movie cameras first showed up, they gave people the ability to capture their memories on the spot with real movement and then later, (gasp) color! Forget the fact that there was no sound and the images were often washed out or grainy. You had your own movie camera and sharing the family vacation would never be a static event again.
And today many digital still camera and cell phones also display a primitive if not reminiscent look to those old home movies. Sure, for not much money you can get yourself a pretty good little digital video set up, but I’m talking now about the devices that were intended for quick clips, many without sound. Some of the first digital cameras had a video quality that has become today’s old home movies.
So there you have it. What’s new is old. And the old is suddenly new again. And the lo becomes hi, and the so called hi looks lo again. Oh well, I guess the most important thing isn’t the devices we use, but how we use them. What we capture and record. We may look back and laugh at the way media is transferred, but in the end it’s all about the story we’re telling about ourselves.
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