Recently, instead of making a mix tape or burning a CD, I sent someone a zip file of MP3s. I took the time to select the tracks, organize them into 'Side A' and 'Side B', and relabel the files so they played in order. There was thought and care taken with the entire process and yet I don't know how I feel about the final product.
I mean, the content was what I wanted. It was the method of delivery, the lack of a physical object, that has caused me distress. There's no presence to this gift that I have dedicated my time and effort towards. There's nothing to send in the mail, nothing to unwrap, nothing to look at years later when you've forgotten about it to remind you about the sender. I wonder if it has a shelf life beyond the first listen.
But is that the point of what I was creating? I don't know. I still have mix tapes I received from friends in high school. I have CDs people burned for me in university. I have kept these things even if I didn't like the content. The electronic mix, however, has no physicality to take up space for discovery at some undefined time in the future. It lacks history. It moves through space easily but won't survive moving through time. Basically, it's disposable and maybe that's what I'm most worried about. I don't want it thrown away.
2 comments:
ummm, NOT thrown away! and definitely listened to more than once (so far)...
i have grappled with this as well. i have recently decided that i won't buy physical cd's anymore, but digitally. it's just less stuff to have to move around I suppose. I loved making mix tapes, and did even throughout college. that turned into making cd's, which was easier. I too am fond of the materiality of these mixes. and I too still hold onto ones that people have given me over the years (much to the dismay of my parents, whose home in which these are stored!) anyhow. I get that obsolescence is part and parcel with the trajectory of technology these days. and perhaps this is one way to begin to think through relationships as they are mediated by objects. is it the materiality that matters in the end (pun intended)? I am torn about this, and feel somewhat similar about photos as well. . .
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