Within media, there is nothing as permanent as change.
Media as a form is an ever changing body from video, photography and through to sound. Artefacts within this form adapt alongside developments in technology and the environmental demand.
Technology runs parallel to the creation, circulation and consumption of popular music, seeing it become a major defining factor of the way in which people engage with Music as a whole (Theberge, P, 2001).
When analysing the idea of nothing being as central to media than change I took to assessing the shifts in technology – especially the evolution from Vinyl, Cassette Disk, CD, forward to digital, focusing on the resurgence of past forms. Doing this I shifted my creative response to be reflective of this ever-changing rotation in consumption habits – how the focus has reverted and reiterated an old forms currency in the case of Vinyl.
Paul Winters outlined in his 2017 journal article titled Vinyl: The Analog Record in the Digital Age, Popular Music and Society, Winters outlines that the emerging popularity among vinyl within this digital era comes down to the physicality of Vinyl as a whole – inclusive of all the “imperfections and limitations” (Winters, P, 2017, p245) that comes with it as a media form.
Within my reflective artefact, I have produced to emphasise the idea that there’s Nothing as permanent is change within media through utilising a juxtaposition of vinyl and CDs. My primarily visual piece emphasises that old media isn’t something that should be completely disregarded due to the value of them as a form – allowing for further development through “the only constant of musical technology being change, ”(Brabazon, T, Cull, F, Kent, M,& McRae, L, 2015, p.26).
Through the utilisation of Photoshop, I altered two images which I captured of both Vinyl and CD formats to create a final abstract image representative of the fluid change media undergoes and to represent the importance of both new and old media as attributing forces within the current environment. There is not one without the other and how the two have continued to stand out as two of the most durable forms.
References:
– Théberge, P, “Plugged In: Technology and Popular Music,” pp. 1-25.
-Winters, P 2017, “Vinyl: The Analog Record in the Digital Age,” Popular Music and Society, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 244-246.
-Brabazon, Tara, Felicity Cull, Mike Kent and Leanne McRae (2005) “Jingling the Single: The i-Podification of the Music Industry,” AQ: Australian Quarterly 77 (3) 26–36