Tiny tools and the ephemeral nature of digital art

nathalielawhead.com

51 points·dhotson··7 comments

> I think it’s fascinating how certain art will outlive the tools it was made in, or some tools will outlive the art… with formats once supported in that tool just dying out and no longer being something you can even see.

This is a novel thought that I have not considered. Thanks for sharing.

Can we think of any examples of physical media that this applies to? Is there any physical art that is unachievable to us in the 21C?

Certain pigments for paint to longer exist for a variety of reasons. Some were dangerous and others are impractical to create.

> Can we think of any examples of physical media that this applies to?

Interesting question! I can think of a bunch of examples that are somewhat similar, but don’t feel perfectly analogous. I’m thinking painting with a camera obscura might count. Optical film compositing isn’t done anymore, along with a lot of special effects techniques that predate computer graphics. Photography used to be much more physical than it is now, for example the process of famous photographers like Ansel Adams involved building the camera, mixing chemicals, and a lot of darkroom work.

Stradivarius violins?

How about uranium-glass sculpture from the 50s or ceramics painted with radioactive paint?

I suppose civilization is capable of remaking them, but likely never will.

I built a digital art tool https://gif.com.ai (and I can’t find a job as a frontend programmer but that’s another story)

The skeleton hand cursor caught me by surprise, and I burst out laughing. I miss the early internet.

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