I want to comment in general on Hito Steyerl’s usage of Tumblr in her work Liquidity Inc.
I admire Hito for choosing the path of digital landscape to dwell on in her work. Having lived in Berlin for half a year, I can say that the city is into traditional and street arts, and techno music scene more so than contemporary arts. Being one of the minority to utilize the online world as a subject is a risky and bold move for Hito. I admire her dedication and courage to do so.
“Digital information is thus characterised by transformation, degradation, circulation, but also by its surprising ability to mutate and produce unpredictable results.”
This is an eye opening concept to me. Growing up as technology advances, I do not tend to pay attention to the nitty gritty details of the things I find “common” and “normal.” Hito, on the other hand, has strong observations on how digital information moves as people produce and use it in various ways. I specifically thought deeper on the degradation characteristic on digital information. She did not expand further on this aspect but I think that it’s her way of portraying digital information as a balanced commodity. Is has its ups and downs, just like how it should be.
Hito as she talked about Marker and Resnais’ film: “But it came back in form of YouTube files replete with artifacts, cut up and dispersed in fragments across the web to live again – if only for another while.”
I am not sure is she’s in favor of this method or not. I think she is indifferent about it but her hinting that YouTube as a platform is not a permanent solution says something problematic. I do believe that there is an underlying problem that digital information faces. The digital world in general is threatened by uncertainty. The chances that digital information gets lost and never again see the light of day only get higher and higher as more and more digital information gets produced. Is there really a guarantee that online is permanent? Where else can digital information reside?