"Once considered the fuel of civilisation, paper and ink have done more for the storage and distribution of knowledge than any other medium before them: the post- Gutenberg explosion of mass produced reading matter helped to democratise access to information and served as a key driver for the European Renaissance and thus the spread of knowledge, art and enlightenment.
Before the advent of electronic communications, that is, according to media dissector Brian Dettmer, The fluid and instantaneous movement of information across space reveals the limit of object-based media, which are bound by the laws of matter. Tangible media are no longer the only -nor the most efficient- way to store and transmit data-
In this dichotomy between digital media´s fast flexibility and paper´s immutable permanence , we witness a semantic split between the uses of both communication tools. Akin to the revolutionary switch from painting to photography in the documentation of visual information, the displacement of one technology by another frees the suddenly outmoded and irrelevant medium of its pragmatic primary function, of its formal constraints, and allows artist and scientist alike to appropriate it as a versatile means to be cherished for its idiosyncrasies...."
All of a sudden, artworks that require physical effort and direct involment, objects that cannot be created via copy and paste, experience an incredible resurgence of appreciation from both creators and recipientes alike.
In an age where almost any information, be it newspaper article or video clip, photograph or music file, is only a few free clicks away, the unique immediacy of an object, performance or installation, its multi.sensory properties, the moment itself goins renewed importance.