illustration : Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No 2 (1847) is known as the ancestor of the computer (courtesy of the Science Museum)
The appeal of vintage technologies
Dead technologies must have something enthralling about them. Nowadays, loads of artists recycle outdated devices of some sort into their creation, and the use of an old format is always voguish.
I am not sure if I fully understand this 'low-tech' trend. Don't get me wrong: like most of you, I do like wandering around second-hand shops in search of an old record, book or furniture. But I simply can't figure out why there is so much fuss about obsolete technologies. Why do we feel more comfortable being backward-looking? Where does this need come from? And, above all, why is old-fashioned futurism is always a source of inspiration for artists?
James Houston, for instance, just graduate from Glasgow School of Art’s visual communication. In his final project, he worked on a low-tech version of Radiohead's Nude.
Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.
navigation
external links
- > henry jenkins
- > dead media project
- > ghostsites
- > oldcomputers
- > vintage technology magazine
- > oldtechnology.net
- > asciimation
- > blasthaus
- > vintage technology collector
- > low-tech wiki
- > synthmuseum
- > making a mixtape
- > muxtape
- > time warp
- > remix theory
- > digital preservation coalition
- > archives.org
- > the british library
- > science museum
