Computational Media and the Paradox of Permanence
Abstract Throughout our history as communicative beings, we sought permanence from media that we used to store information, communicate, and help us deal with the ever-changing world. For the longest time, analogue media carried out these tasks despite their slow, but inevitable, processes of physical decay, but nowadays, computational technologies are generally proposed as fast, cheap, and convenient alternatives to the limitations of analogue technologies. This paper argues that regardless of how computational technologies are perceived as upgraded versions of the analogue media forms that preceded them, their effectiveness as media is limited because computational forms are anything but permanent. We claim that it is our refusal, and our fear, of impermanence that drives the desire to construct a worldview that is biased for permanence, even when the opposite lies before our eyes, as happens with computational media forms. This leads to a dissonance between the world as it is and the world as we perceive it, and to a paradox at the heart of computational media forms. This dissonance limits our relationships with these media, our literacy, and the ways how we can develop meaning and nurture creative relationships with them.
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Digital revista |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Universidade de Aveiro
2023
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| Online Access: | http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2184-31202023000200031 |
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