2 Replies to “Watch movie online Fifty Shades Darker (2017)”
Rosemary, many thanks for this great post. You do a great job weaving together many of the everyday uses of authenticity with our course readings.
In particular, I like the way that you pick apart the tangible and intangible nature of digital objects. It’s often difficult to describe the relationship between the very base level of digital information (physical markings of some sort on a medium) and all the layers of informational abstractions that are stacked up on top of them.
Thanks for pulling out Yao’s train example. I think find this to be a particularly helpful model for picking apart some of the very distinct ways that “sameness” or “is” gets used. On some level, all the talk about authenticity is tied up in different meanings we place on those terms and the train example is another great take on some of those allographic notions of identity.
You’re example of Sam’s student record is also very useful and I like how you used it to open up a whole set of questions for articulating preservation intent. It’s also a nice example of some of the general problems in preservation. It really wouldn’t be possible to “preserve” sam. That is, you could cryogenically freeze someone (or something like that) but for that would get in the way of him wanting to go to college. This point can send us back to many of our discussions about the lineages of preservation. If what I cared about was the particular record created by Sam’s application to college than it would be easy enough to keep a copy of the text in his responses. This is rather nice, in that it’s easy to keep copies of text and confirm that the text is the same in the future. With that said, if what you really cared about was other aspects of him, then we might think about collecting records created through other things he uses (might be an export of his Facebook profile, or a copy of his computer). Beyond that, one might also consider documenting his life through oral history interviews or through hiring a photographer or a videographer to follow him around for the day and record what a day in his life is like. The point of all these examples is just to further underscore that when we set out to articulate what it is that matters about a person, place, event, etc. we are then in a position to ask about what kinds of records, artifacts, objects, etc. would best capture some aspects of that person, place, event, etc. In most cases, we care about the things that those objects point to (that is Sam’s college application isn’t interesting in its’ own right, it is interesting in what it can tell us about Sam, or college life, or what the college values, etc.) so it’s critical that we think about significance of an object in context of what it can testify to.
I really like your example of the train. It is true that the timing and destination are the important things, but even when some physicality is introduced, it is not all-encompassing. It’s something I’ve thought of when going through museums or ‘authentic’ historical experiences.
What I mean is: suppose this train is not just arriving at a specific station and going to a specific town, which are constant, but is a historical train dating to the mid 19th century with era-appropriate fixtures, seating, furniture, even the costumes of the train crew. As a passenger, you know this, expect this, and would be disappointed if anything were amiss. Let us even suppose that you are an expert on mid-19th century trains and every detail about their appearance, and even you can say that in this respect, the train looks completely authentic. And yet, you also know that the materials are likely made just a few years ago. And you know (and hope, I expect) that the train is outfitted with modern safety features, electricity, etc. So the train advertises itself as an authentic experience, while not being completely authentic. So even here, if we introduce some physical properties to the ‘authentic’ properties of the train, it is not and probably cannot be 100% authentic. And that’s okay.
Defining what properties make something authentic, however, is a whole different problem.
Rosemary, many thanks for this great post. You do a great job weaving together many of the everyday uses of authenticity with our course readings.
In particular, I like the way that you pick apart the tangible and intangible nature of digital objects. It’s often difficult to describe the relationship between the very base level of digital information (physical markings of some sort on a medium) and all the layers of informational abstractions that are stacked up on top of them.
Thanks for pulling out Yao’s train example. I think find this to be a particularly helpful model for picking apart some of the very distinct ways that “sameness” or “is” gets used. On some level, all the talk about authenticity is tied up in different meanings we place on those terms and the train example is another great take on some of those allographic notions of identity.
You’re example of Sam’s student record is also very useful and I like how you used it to open up a whole set of questions for articulating preservation intent. It’s also a nice example of some of the general problems in preservation. It really wouldn’t be possible to “preserve” sam. That is, you could cryogenically freeze someone (or something like that) but for that would get in the way of him wanting to go to college. This point can send us back to many of our discussions about the lineages of preservation. If what I cared about was the particular record created by Sam’s application to college than it would be easy enough to keep a copy of the text in his responses. This is rather nice, in that it’s easy to keep copies of text and confirm that the text is the same in the future. With that said, if what you really cared about was other aspects of him, then we might think about collecting records created through other things he uses (might be an export of his Facebook profile, or a copy of his computer). Beyond that, one might also consider documenting his life through oral history interviews or through hiring a photographer or a videographer to follow him around for the day and record what a day in his life is like. The point of all these examples is just to further underscore that when we set out to articulate what it is that matters about a person, place, event, etc. we are then in a position to ask about what kinds of records, artifacts, objects, etc. would best capture some aspects of that person, place, event, etc. In most cases, we care about the things that those objects point to (that is Sam’s college application isn’t interesting in its’ own right, it is interesting in what it can tell us about Sam, or college life, or what the college values, etc.) so it’s critical that we think about significance of an object in context of what it can testify to.
So again, great post!
Rosemary,
I really like your example of the train. It is true that the timing and destination are the important things, but even when some physicality is introduced, it is not all-encompassing. It’s something I’ve thought of when going through museums or ‘authentic’ historical experiences.
What I mean is: suppose this train is not just arriving at a specific station and going to a specific town, which are constant, but is a historical train dating to the mid 19th century with era-appropriate fixtures, seating, furniture, even the costumes of the train crew. As a passenger, you know this, expect this, and would be disappointed if anything were amiss. Let us even suppose that you are an expert on mid-19th century trains and every detail about their appearance, and even you can say that in this respect, the train looks completely authentic. And yet, you also know that the materials are likely made just a few years ago. And you know (and hope, I expect) that the train is outfitted with modern safety features, electricity, etc. So the train advertises itself as an authentic experience, while not being completely authentic. So even here, if we introduce some physical properties to the ‘authentic’ properties of the train, it is not and probably cannot be 100% authentic. And that’s okay.
Defining what properties make something authentic, however, is a whole different problem.