Oh my God, this stuff is totally coming. Its going to be awesome. In this fascinating conversation, the digital technology writer talks about the future of media as predicted by everything from pencil sharpeners to Sherlock.
In late December I interviewed Clive Thompson, author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better.
Jess Kimball: Let's get right to one of my favorite ideas from your book: on page 44 you say, Our ancestors learned how to remember, and we will learn how to forget.
Clive Thompson: I think that epiphany comes from conversations that I had with Cathy Marshall. Cathy's a researcher from Microsoft; she has spent years studying how people deal with their exploding digital archives. What do people do with it all? Ive been meaning to write a piece one of these days that's just about her work. I said, "Isnt it weird that we have to deal with all this stuff?" I take photos of my kids on my iPhone, on my Nexus, and now Ive got 4,000 photos or so that I may never look at again. Cathy said that we're facing a question archivists have long had to deal with, which is, What of this massive corpus of stuff is worth preserving? What should we remember, and what should we forget?'
Up until now, within our entire 200 year photography experiment, we only took a photo when we wanted to preserve it.
Jess Kimball: So how are we learning to forget thus far?
Clive Thompson: Some of it might be active acts of saying, "I dont want all this stuff." Were seeing that already with SnapChat. If you talk to people who use SnapChat, theyll give you a couple reasons why they like it. One idea is that its evanescent: the photos arent being stored, so they are more conversational, more fun, and people feel more free to just do silly, stupid things.
Secondarily, people like the idea of not clogging their phone with lots of photos because the SnapChat photos arent saved. People could do like 30 SnapChats a day but after a month, they werent going to have to go through this onerous task of going, "All right. My phones full. What am I going to get rid of?" That turns out to be an emotionally difficult moment. When you think about photos, it's a really funny thing because up until now, within our entire 200 year photography experiment, we only took a photo when we wanted to preserve it.
Jess Kimball: And now part of photography's purpose has shifted.
Clive Thompson: Now that a photo can be sent in the moment to just say, "Heres what Im doing," it can become a communication act thats completely separate from the act of archiving and saving. It's taking us a long time to decouple the photo as an expressive act from the photo as a permanent archive.
Jess Kimball: So nowadays we all have these big banks of personal, digital ephemera: our photos, videos and text. I think the existence of these banks creates a set of fascinating challenges and opportunities for artists. Take the MTV show Catfish, they've created a new documentary style using peoples Facebook posts, iChat sessions, and iPhone pictures to enrich and contextualize a story...
Clive Thompson: Absolutely.
Jess Kimball: ...And that collateral completely changes the emotions that you have about the characters' love lives.
Clive Thompson: I think youre right, theyve really nailed it. There was that great little thing that went viral on YouTube, a relationship breakup purely through the Facebook interface...
It depicts all these weird documents in our lives: bits of conversations that are written down, bits of video like Skyping or Google Hangouts. Again, this is one of the reasons why I think its so interesting to pay attention to the aesthetics of these new records that we're making because they violate all the aesthetics of how we used to use recording devices.
Jess Kimball: I never thought of it like that, but it's so true.
Clive Thompson: I like to joke that it would be interesting to figure out what the most common shot in the entire history of the moving image is, if you took every second of recorded image, every movie and every home video and everything on YouTube and categorized it into types of shots. There's the tracking shot, theres the close up, but Ill bet the most common shot someone staring into a web cam or into a phone cam.
Jess Kimball: As you reference it in the book, the confessional shot from reality television.
Clive Thompson: Its almost Freudian, the confessional un-baring of the soul to a camera ensconced in your bedroom. Now the confessional shot, by Hollywood standards, is unbelievably ugly. The lightings bad, the talking into the camera is always a little off, and youre breaking fourth wall. Youre acknowledging that theres something behind the camera; it was rarely seen in movies and when it was seen, it was very jokey.
In the early days of video games, in the 80s and 90s, there was this libel that everyone was just staring at the screen,' and it was always written by people who didnt play video games.
Jess Kimball: I'm looking forward to seeing the John Hughes of the future bring our digital lives to the big screen in a new way: I mean, think about the cinematic opportunity, a hundred 17-year-olds are silently staring into their iPhones right now but their minds are being blown, they're texting with some girl or guy and they're learning that love exists! They're having the times of their lives, but in an altered form.
Clive Thompson: Those kids are going to grow up and realize that theres a way to actually write about this stuff that actually honors their experience. I think one of the reasons that Im sensitive to this, too, is that Im a video game player. In the early days of video games, in the 80s and 90s, there was this libel that everyone was just staring at the screen,' and it wa
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
26/04/2024
Dead Boy Detectives, a series from Neil Gaiman about a detective agency staffed by ghosts, debuts on Netflix April 25. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are in t...
26/04/2024
The Story Collective has gradually repurposed the former Mortlake Brewery to include production offices, workshops and sound stages
By Matthew Corrigan
Publi...
26/04/2024
Perkett joins the company following a 25 year career in product management, product marketing, engineering and user experience (UX) across multiple industries
...
26/04/2024
Teradek, the industry leader in wireless video transmitters and receivers, announced today the launch of new Bolt 6 LT 750 and Bolt 6 Monitor Module 750 RX with...
26/04/2024
NEW YORK Amagi has appointed Richard Perkett chief product officer (CPO)....
26/04/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced the results of the 2024 NAB Radio and Television Board of Directors elections. The...
26/04/2024
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. & NEW YORK Mattel has announced a deal to launch its first three 24/7 free ad supported streaming (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung...
26/04/2024
PORTLAND, Maine Viewers here can now receive the NextGen TV signals of five local stations with the launch of ATSC 3.0 service from host station WPFO, which is ...
26/04/2024
TORONTO Rogers Communications has signed a 10-year agreement with Comcast to bring the latest Xfinity products and technology to Canadians....
Oh my God, this stuff is totally coming. Its going to be awesome. In this fascinating conversation, the digital technology writer talks about the future of media as predicted by everything from pencil sharpeners to Sherlock. 
