TEM CCE
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COchenta y un atios separan el Isjano 1928 del aro 2008. El lector
se preguntard cual es la razén para comparar estos dos puntos
‘temporales Al referimos a ese tiempo pretéito nos remitimos al afio
‘cero de una época marcada por una espantosa premonicion. En 1928
‘el escrito, fl6sof0,crtco y, aadiria, vidente, Paul Valéry anticip6 en
‘su breve ensayo La Cnquéte de 'ubiquit’ lo que podria lamarse la
sociedad recreativa de la moitiple fricion cultural,
Es preciso destacar cémo al tiempo verbal future utiizado
por el autor traduce con admirable acierto la situacién presente,
fen especial cuando indica que «las obras adquirran una especie
de ubicuidad. Su presencia inmediata o su resttucién en cualquier
momento obedecerén a nuestra iemada. Ya no estarn sdio en si
‘mismas, sino todas alll donde haya alguien y aigin aparato»?. Estas
palabras son tan reveladoras que Walter Benjamin en 1996 las cta en
‘el préiogo de su libro més celebre La obra de arte en la 6poca de su
reproductibildad técnica, reflexion fundamental para la comprension
*
‘These words were 0 revealing that Welter Benjamin quoted them
in 1986 in the prologue of his most famous book, The Work of Art
in the Period of its Technological Reproduction, an essential work of
reflection for the understanding of the emerging mass culture. AS he
aid in his well-known epilogue: «by means of technical reproduction,
the copy and circulation of information through communication media
will produce the democratization of culture».
This phenomenon grew with the arrival of the digital era
which coincided with the popularization, from 1996 onwards, of @
powedul instrument of private collectvistion: the World Wide Web.
‘This generalization was produced when, at the same time, the Web
became an archive that permitted the rapid and instantaneous access
to all types of works, from the most canonical creations to the avant-
‘garde, and as a DIV proactive channel for exhibition and visibility.
BRUNO CARRIGO REIS*
‘As a consequence of the price reduction of hardware, due to mass
production, and software, because of the emergence of free access
programmes and the us® of illegal downloads, our homes became
high quality mutimedia studios.
From this to an intensive production was just a step, altering
sociabilties withthe "worlds ofan”, touse Howard Becker's sociological
term. The classical relation of emission flow/raceiver, especially among
the generations socialised in the new technologies, became a king
fof communicational hybrid, Here, producers and receivers can no
longer be distinguished, geting feedback from the numerous digital
platforms that cater for this new realty. From biog to MySpace, and
from YouTube to webpage, the possiblities of lending visbilty to new
experiences directly, without any meciation, are multiplied, and then, in
ome cases, absorbed by the most conventional cultural industries,
‘We ave living in an unprecedented age with the almost daily
appearance of creative agents: wrters, musicians, video artists,
Photographers, etc, The frenetic rhythm moves away from the
frystfcation of meagre times and the weak pre-oybemetic cultural
Consumption. This consumption was established from a straight,
fasting and material relationship with the art object, today deformed
by the acceleration which places Impressions before understanding’
Using the physical-chamical metaphors of two of the mast important
thinkers on the subject, Yves Michaud and Zygmunt Bauman, this
trend leads to an evaporation or dllution of the social meaning of
current art creations. For these authors the over-abundance of artistic
production subtracts intensity and communication capabiltis from
‘works, causing the vague feeling that there is a fine ie between the
(generative and the destructive
(DOSSER ARTECONTEXTO 1“This fact is not removed from the demateralzation itself of
cuitural objects, Following compression logic, there is an existing
tendency to reduce them to archives and fles comfortably stored in
technological formats. Everything fits in that process which removes
the real presence of creation within the standardising hard dsc, in the
increasingly micro-ight laptops, in the pen crive and the MP3 reader.
‘The weight and the volume of cultural objects have been converted
Into Gigabytes and Terabytes, thus replacing some central aspects of
their identity, The audiovisual archives which store massive amounts
of content, with increasingly unlimited capacity, alter the relationship
with the work itself, which before boasted a corporeal nature, now
‘causing its symbolic annihilation.
The new relationship established withthe digital format in which
the compact disc is replaced by the MPS, the DVD for AVI and other
textensions, and the so-called “plastic works” which are increasingly
Jess removed from the multdisciplinary production processes, lead
to the Incorporation of the new technologies and the production of
potentiates, promoting an exponential growth of digital museums.
[Al these symptoms seam to lead to a new relationship with cultural
‘consumption, for «audiences are not born, they are made. Since the
middle of the 1970s withthe appearance ofthe video cassette (1978)
‘and the walkman (1979), which saw their digital versions improved in
‘the DVD player (1995) and the Discman (1984), everything pointed toa
privatization of the consumption that was established with the advent
Gf the internet, whien also mado It more aificult to study the profile of
‘these intimate consumers’.
“This new trend was revealed in a special way in the
‘music phenomenon, where @ more accentuated process of
‘Gematerialization can be observed. In film, literature and the visual
aris the need still exists for a concrete experience, a characteristic
that the digital era has not yet managed to emulate. Turning once
‘again to the masterly clairvayance of Valéry: «Of all the arts music
js closer to being transposed to the modern mods. tts nature
‘and the place it occupies in the world point to it being the first
to. modity Its distribution, reproduction and even production
formulass, Since 1998, with the appearance of the MP3 audio
‘compression format and the emergence of MP3 readers, many
things have changed. Currently, their daily use in Europe 1s
calculated at almost 100 milion users. Keeping in mind these
‘ery revealing figures, a recant report of the Scientific Committee
fon Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks highlighted the
Increase of deafness in the medium term due to the intensive use
of these machines", Perhaps the title of the record by Queens of
the Stone Age in 2002: Songs for the Deaf, which points out the
first symptoms attributed to an encapsulated way of life, ean no
longer be regarded as ironic.
‘But the risks to public health are a minor concern to a music
industry which has gone bankrupt because of the generalised
use of peer-to-peer music download programmes. Through these
services, Internet users can share, for free, the MPS files on
their computers with other uses. Since the germ which emerged
12: ARTECONTENTO. 00851
with the Napster programme, in 1999, the sale of records has
hot stopped decreasing, to the extent that 45% fewer units are
Commercialized, according to the consulting company Nielsen
SoundScan. As compensation, we are witnessing the growth of the