The Future of Nostalgia: Staying Alive Digitally

by Vince Kellen

Since mankind has been making images of things, mankind has seen those images fade. Our perception of the past is deeply reliant on our perception of the artifact that represents the past. Aged, yellow photographs in our hands match the mystic past of faded memories in our minds. Grainy, worn-out super-eight home movies from the 1970s leave much obscured. Remember old and overplayed vinyl records? Their scratchiness revealed their age; while charming, they degraded the quality of the sound. The 20th century is not alone in this. Each prior century has had decrepit artifacts inherited from distant ancestors.