How Gracefully Does our Media-Based Art Age?

By Nickolas Weingartner on 07/09/2009

As we waltz our way into the ever-present future, it may be helpful to ask ourselves if the work that we leave in our wake will pass the test of time. With new 'masterpieces' arriving every few years, one has to think how long these pieces of art will hold up.

Now by hold up, I don't mean to physically exist... that's the job of archivers everywhere. What I mean is whether or not the fact that most of the art generated in the modern age has been created by technological means hinder the art itself. Whether it's a movie shot on film, or a record recorded on analog, or even a video-game created with 16-bit; almost all pieces of modern art are forever tied to the technology that was used to create them.

Obviously there are a few types of art that I'm leaving out. Books, for one, are based on words - which last forever, and aren't bound to anything but the hand - and painting, which is based on colors created by mixtures that have been around for centuries, and can be appreciated regardless of their time, as humans have been glaring at these hardened mixtures for centuries - and they are once again bound only to the human hand... and scientific preservation techniques.

But film and recorded music aren't tied to the hand. They are tied to the complex and complicated technological processes that create them... which aren't timeless, and are instead constantly changing, often leaving their predecessors in their dust.

But how does this affect the art itself?

Well, it's easy to see. Just ask your little brother to watch Casablanca with you, rather than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It isn't going to happen, is it? Or maybe try your friends to watch The Graduate instead of Garden State. Almost always, you'll see that the popular opinion always shifts to the newer film, often just because of the fact that the older movies look and sound much different than new ones.

Even though purists say this shouldn't matter, it does. As things are getting better and better for the film industry, it's products are becoming more and more technologically advanced then it's predecessors. New films aren't even on the same playing field anymore... they're stuck forever in a losing battle, losing relevancy and viewership.
 

In music this process is happening in a different way. Sure, older albums like The Beatles landmark record, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are losing listeners because of their quality, but new music producers are now mixing albums louder, to appeal to the MP3 format and therefore for computer speakers.

So if masterpieces like Casablanca and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are continuing to lose our little brothers and sisters to Bad Boys 2 and RIOT!, is it foolish to blame this only on the 'fledging new generation', and not acknowledge the fact that our media-based works of art aren't aging as gracefully as we thought? 

[Additional Photos: "Casablanca," 4thandVine.Ca, 2009; "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," www.stevesbeatles.com, 2009]