April 12, 2002
MarkBernstein.org
 

ELO obsolesence

There was much talk at the Electronic Literature Organization's "State of the Arts" conference about obsolescence. This word, I think, was used indiscriminately to represent two different anxieties.

First, people worry that electronic art they create (or teach, or enjoy) will be lost as systems change. This fear is, I think, exaggerated and misplaced. If readers and scholars care about a work, it will survive because it will be ported, translated, and preserved. afternoon, a story is already the oldest consumer software on the market; keeping it (and the rest of the Storyspace canon) fresh and current has demonstrably not exceeded the (very modest) resources that Eastgate commands.

If a work has no readers, it may easily be lost forever, whether it is written in granite or bits. Yes, a few paper works went ignored for generations and, like Beowulf, were miraculously salvaged. We don't know -- we cannot know -- what wasn't salvaged. It seems unlikely that posterity will have time to sort through the detritus of our literature, electronic or otherwise, to hunt for ignored gems. Unless we tell them what's good, they'll never find it in the junk.

The other obsolescence on people's minds is the knowledge that the passage of time will tarnish the bright, shiny newness of their work. Like schoolchildren, some media professors scoff at the idea that old art can speak to us. Yes, the surface of old art will tarnish -- it will acquire dings and dents and a patina of unintended meanings deposited by the years and by our remembered experiences. So what?

The unforgettable film you saw, that unforgettable night with your first lover: that movie is not the same today. It cannot be, because you cannot be. But if it is a good movie, even this does not matter.

Why are we so worried about obsolescence? Why aren't we enjoying the moment, the first flush of all the wonderful new hypertext all around us? Are we so old and tired that we cannot rouse ourselves to engage new art for fear that someday, perhaps. the affair will end?