Applied blobsquatchery interferes with the production of obsolescence by way of an anamorphic perspective. Shaping the debate by losing form. Excess and noise become forms of camoflage, razzle-dazzle and creative prompt. “We can see the outmoded and obsolescent as a means to catch a glimpse of other possible worlds, to imagine how the world might be ‘otherwise,’” writes Michelle Henning in her essay New Lamps for Old: Photography, Obsolescence and Social Change.
Henning, following Evan Watkins’ studies, describes the production of obsolescence as an operation requiring “fields of equivalence.” This marketing maneuver coerces understanding of any given “new media” as the obvious and impending improvement. The DTV transition depends, in part, on conditioning the consumer into perceiving a value shift from analog to digital television systems. Digital television is being ushered in as a remediation of analog TV. Better picture, More selection. The persistent siren songs of home entertainment hype add an extra note: No more ghosts. The visual noise of static interference on analog TV screens, known as ‘ghosting’ — is a combination of neighboring electromagnetic fields and residual traces of cosmic radiation dating back 13 billion years! Ghost stories from the dawn of time, these residual media are denied existence along with the rest.
Metaphortean fields of equivalence stray from predominant linear models. Oscillating between errors inherent in (always already) obsolescent technologies and the new species and lost worlds accessible at interfaces of malfunction.
Fortean electronics including Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), and Electronic Image Phenomena (EIP) rely on analog receivers to facilitate long distance visitations with other entities and worlds. Other electronic anomalists, such as Portland’s Pulse Emitter, are simply fascinated with the itineraries of electrons. Pulse Emitter pursues adventures in sonic fiction by way of modular synthesis. The random fluctuations of tv and radio ‘ghosts’ are a favored compositional element in this artist’s articulation of electronic sound
The end of analog broadcasts ensures the mass exodus of commercial programming to the digital realm, allowing cosmic accounts of the Big Bang to take center stage. In metaphortean circles, analog recievers will become a sort of wildlife preserve. Sanctuaries for research, the rabbit-eared relics will become treasured sites for observation and exploration of an eclectic electronic ecosystem.
