Wednesday, February 24, 2010

REMEMBERING LONI DING


I was very new in the country, very new at The Asia Society, when Loni gave me an eloquent hour long talk on the phone (our first of many conversations) on Asian Americans and the civil rights movement. And what she expected me to do in my new position. It was a lesson I never forgot.

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
THOUGHTS ON HOME VIDEOS as i like to say, the undocumented life is not worth examining...  

1) every document requires a method or technology of transmission - voice, paper, vcrs, computer etc.  

2) nowadays these technologies change much more rapidly and are controlled by a few companies.  

3) today's documentation technologies are not universal or flexible. one can see a photo album made by his father but his son will not be able to watch dvd he has made. and so on.  

4) today, besides loss of memory, plain simple loss or lack of closet space, we have to deal with obsolescence, often inbuilt by companies.  

5) i have lots of digital tapes i have not put on discs or on a hard drive. discs have even shorter life spans i am told. and hard drives tend to fill up.  

6) i now shoot on flip. i shoot less and am more disciplined i find. plus i edit right away instead of storing footage. more watchable by the hapless folks i victimize with my films. drawback: can't do very long takes or films. not a drawback for my audience i imagine.  

7) i store on the web for easy and portable retrieval. assuming one always has hispeed access. i use youtube. being limited to 10 min has plusses and minusses as above. i used to store longer pieces on google video but that's not around anymore. one could also make them private and not public there. i use facebook too.  

8) with google video, i am thinking whatever format i upload with, i can download using whichever google has updated its video format with. free upgrade so to speak.  

all fine as long as google is around. but one needs to keep those photo albums too.  

i dont know what happens after google and facebook die.  

maybe the stars go out.  

one by one.