T3D Digitizing "Art"

[egoldste@xxxxxx (Eric Goldstein)]

Mike K sez:

>John Toeppen wrote:
>
>> "digital conversion might represent an
>> APPROXIMATION of the original, but could not replace the original in any
>> serious conservation effort."
>
>Actually, the analog image probably being talked about being converted,
>is itself only an APPROXIMATION of the actual original.  :-)
>
>Be that as it may, what was said above is certainly true at the time of the
>conversion.  However after some number of years, when the analog
>approximation of real life has lost some if it's accuracy, which it will,
>it'll be more of an approximation than the digitized version that
>has lost nothing in that time period.

Mike -

John didn't write this, I did.

Noting the presence of the smiley, I do think it would help to clarify a
point in your post...

In the creative world, that which is created IS the original and frankly
much or most of the time it's bearing on "real life" is either tangential
or irrelevent! Irrespective of the medium, artists are engaged in the
pursuit of the INTERPRETATION of reality. Very few are consumed with the
straight recording or expression of reality, and even those which are (as
example might be the recording of a piece of classical music) universally
use the tools/tricks of the medium available to them to either enhanse that
reality and/or to compensate for the limitations of the medium (continuing
with the example of a classical music recording, close miking, compression,
eq, reverb are all tools which the recording artists may employ to make the
recording seem more "real" but which in fact move the recording further
away from actual reality).

So the original point that the conversion of an analogue artistic piece
into digital cannot be considered "storage" or conservation in any
meaningful sense actually has nothing to do with whether that digitization
moves the work closer or further from the reality which it may be based
upon.



Eric G.



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