"Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them." - Brian Eno
- Every new medium obsolesces the previous one - which then becomes the content, or the art form, of the new medium.
- Once the old ground becomes content of a new situation, it appears to ordinary attention as aesthetic figure. At the same time, a new retrieval or nostalgia is born
I was watching a live worship session on Youtube and it was beautiful, kept my mind at peace.
Now mind you at the same time I was also a perfectionist, which means you tend to see imperfections in others.
Now at a certain point the singer's voice broke as she was hitting a high note. But before I could mentally register the imperfection I heard or felt such a clear gentle voice that said: "that was the most beautiful part".
In an instant it reframed the imperfect into perfect for that moment and thus forever.
And that's what your quote encompasses. Good read, thanks for sharing.
Related is that a lot of cultures embrace intentional imperfections in art for spiritual reasons, as it conveys authenticity and humility in the face of perfection. E.g. Persian flaw [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimme_Shelter
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_carpet#cite_note-68
At about 1:30, just after the "I was very nervous" line, Haley pushes her voice until it breaks. I found it a lovely little grace note, emphasizing the lyric.
I bet the first viewers of VHS were busier with marveling at color, compactness and convenience instead of thinking of the new medium as something ugly and nasty. New technology that gets very popular usually starts as state of the art and impressive, and it's only in retrospect that people think of it in condescending way.
DVD resolution seemed fine to me at the time - it does not seem fine anymore.
Cassettes were not great, not terrible compared to CDs. That is still the case because stereo audio doesn't get much better than CDs.
Conclusion: Whether something seems good at the time depends on availability of something similar but better.
Hmm. Now that we have 1 terabyte 1000MB/s NVme drives, we can really be nostalgic about the 1.44Mb 3.5” floppy drives that have about 30KB/s throughput…
Might even be practical with the latest trends in storage pricing…
I was also looking into https://codeberg.org/fsphil/hacktv which generates a variety of different analog tv signals (meant to be broadcast using HackRF) - but yes, I want the opposite - an analog-receiver-emulator...? And one that would be "ok" with incorrect signals // fail like an analog TV would... :-)
And of course PAL and Hanover bars.
See also: Picture At Last!
See also: System Essentially Contrary to the American Method
I also ported it to JavaScript (linked from above page)
Some day I might try it again using modern css
For ham radio-like sounds, maybe use SDR software like SDR++ and just pipe in a regular audio input, then mess with the decoding settings like LSB/USB.
The imaging device used in electronic camcorders before the transition to CCD had visibly gray whites. They weren't so great by any standards. Hence very few chases it, with nostalgia being the sole reason to do it.
That said, I would not be surprised to see camcorders, DV or VHS or whatever, rise up as a Polaroid-like alternative to smartphone cameras! Old digital point and shoots are already popular that way.
I ended up reaching CFTO (CTV Toronto), and took the footage over to Channel 9 Court. What happened next took me by complete surprise.
The flagship station of a national network had no deck in the building that would play HDV mini DV tapes. I hadn’t brought my camcorder or my MBP either, so I couldn't quickly convert it into a format that they could use.
I ended up going home, and exporting via FCP and burning onto a DVD. It worked, I got to see the inside of a news station and I got $135 for it. The news broadcast later that day showed about 10 seconds of my footage, which by extrapolation, was the highest-ever hourly rate I’ve ever earned: ~$48,600/hour.
The lesson here was that DV and DV-adjacent workflows were difficult in a pro context even when they were mainstream in the consumer market.
As for your second point. A friend of mine's little sister asked him for help setting up the vintage camera she bought. And it was an early 00s digital point & shoot.
The model (HDRCX405) is wonderful, 30x optical zoom a real value-add over smartphones, but also I just love the ergonomics in general, very easy to pick it up, and start a video within a second.
That said, Sony discontinued the low-end handicam line last year (this model went from $200 new to $800 used), which is really unfortunately, right as I hope this niche might gain momentum.
You mind reader you
I'll email you. sorry everyone, just two pal's pall'ing around xx
I wish my VCR was that good in LP mode back then!
Then even we could have filter like: VHS Panasonic, VHS Sony...
This would be very interesting project.