Greetings, Many thanks, Peter and Mark, for your highly-detailed and informative responses. There’s a lot to digest. I have an interesting thought on new media and man’s proclivity toward photos, audio recordings, books, etc. I’m not speaking for everyone, but I’ll confess that I have a certain compulsion towards collecting objects and “events”. When it comes to collecting printed media, I used to buy a lot of books, but I am equally ok with downloading books in electronic form. When I really want to study a book, I generally obtain a hardcopy because I don’t care to read from a computer screen. In fact, I ordered two hardcopies of the McLuhan books you (Mark) mentioned in your email. But reading, in general, forces me to be in a physically uncomfortable position; consequently, I find audio books purposeful and for more than one reason. In addition to the issue of physical comfort, I actually get more out of listening to an audio book than visually reading the pages: I actually absorb more from a book, to include text books, when I’m simultaneously performing a menial task. So, then, I welcome and embrace an age of audio books. I have a fairly large vinyl/LP collection. As I part with my collection, I really don’t mind giving up the physical collection so long as I have 24-bit, 48 kHz digital copies of the LPs being played through my moving-coil phono cartridge and high-end turntable. It’s a though I’m trying to record an “event” -- that event being the hearing the sound of the record through an analog system as well as the musical performance. I’m rarely without my camera (still images, not video), but I’ll bet I’d carry my surround microphone just as often as a camera if it were as portable and easy to set up (at least a mic and field recorder is just as easy to set up as a vintage, large-format camera). Although I rarely print or frame my photos, the stored “images” are just as much a part of my photo collection as the printed images. I'm grateful that I no longer have to deal with dark-room chemicals, though some would argue that a certain art is lost (I can virtually dodge and burn in Photoshop). Perhaps the next “medium” will be our ability to store and retrieve events in our brains in much the same fashion as we store data electronically. The formation of neural synapses create memories, but our ability to tap into these at will (or at appropriate times) seems lacking. Maybe all we need is a controllable “outer feedback loop” that re-routes events stored in white matter to cycle through the peripheral neurons and back to the cerebral cortex (Eureka! The iBrain). I suppose some sort of meta data would be needed to control sample rate for equivalent real-time experiences. In a sense, different and newer media allows us to collect things we never did in the past. When it comes to computing, I know people who collect operating systems and software simply just to have it, not necessarily use it. Our survival (or ability to impress a potential mate) may/may not have been dependent on collecting objects. Regardless, I believe “collecting” is a common trait, and certainly not exclusive to humans. If I can collect a sound’s multi-faceted, multi-directional properties, well that’s a way cooler item to collect (and listen to) than its uni-dimensional counterpart. And, in a sense, I can retrieve more of the “event” I wished to collect. Collecting events isn’t a desire to re-live the past (maybe?); instead, perhaps it’s a way of “moving forward through the rear view mirror” (familiar title, Mark?) or, more importantly, simply enjoying life. Ironically, one of my favorite posters is a B&W photo of EB White taken by photographer Jill Krementz. It shows White in his writing space, which is little more than an empty shed. There’s a lot to be said for simplicity, especially when our senses are constantly bombarded. Even a surround-sound recording of “quiet” results in a surround of audible mic self-noise. Move the air along, and the mic self-noise becomes the pleasant sensation of a breeze. Best, Eric C. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20130410/0a0e39ab/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
