RECAP 2024 – ROYAL RUMBLE FINALE
“Databases are tools for storing and sorting information: they are mnemonic technologies, one of their chief functions is to act as massive and relatively accessible external memories. This recalls Eric and Marshall McLuhan’s application of their tetrad of media effects (enhance, obsolesce, retrieve, reverse) to the computer. With regards to what the computer retrieves: “Perfect memory — total and exact.” You can quibble with the idea of it being “perfect” memory, but the point stands, I think.
Our digital databases are unparalleled memory machines. Narratives, too, can be understood as mnemonic devices. As most of us know from experience, we remember nothing quite so easily as a story. However, with the distinction between the actual and potential in mind, we might also say that narratives are instruments of forgetting. They select what is to be remembered, allowing us to discard the rest. Indeed, a narrative might be defined precisely by what it leaves out. When you tell the story of your day, think about how much of what you might possibly relay is left out of your telling. This, in part, is why Manovich argued that databases and narratives are “natural enemies.”
[fonte]
Fuori da Spotify:
eL-Hortobāgyi Hortator – Ummasumma
James Brandon Lewis – Tritpych
NZO – Come Alive
