Page 15 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

others, do I focus more on it? This capacity to allow external changes on a work could intro- duce a disturbing yet highly creative potential; not to mention the ease with which a book
can be copied and later altered that leads to paradoxes such as the one written about in the Retina publication issued by El País on the son of the philosopher, Antonio Escohotado:
“To understand what has led Jorge to throw himself into the Internet, he gives a very graphic example of how a hacker tries to take ownership of his father’s work. “An Argentinian pirate hacked A Brief History of Drugs and was selling it. If it had been free, we would not have done anything, but now we have given him a taste of his own medicine using his version with a few changes. I don’t think he will dare to report us (laughs),” he explains.
The distribution of electronic books has also undergone a Copernican change as it gives access to an almost unlimited number of titles in any language 24 hours a day.
The author [and his son] copies the pirate that has copied him (and apparently improves it). One paradox more of the many generated by the new digital life of these cultural objects, their authors, their management and their audience.
As in other sectors, the alteration and trans- formation that is happening within cultural entities is based on understanding the changes, rethinking the public’s needs, how to address them, what resources are needed to do so and then what technology is needed. Those who know how to address the demand will survive and those who continue to work with a different focus will be substituted by new players.
As the engineer and designer Richard Buckmin- ster Fuller said: “Don’t try to change a system, build a new one that will render the previous obsolete.”
This is the task we are all facing, to build a new system in culture too.
Notes
1 Apple buys the musical recognition app Shazam:
https://elpais.com/economia/2017/12/11/actuali- dad/1512962068_745605.html
2 This is how ‘shazam art’ works https:// elpais.com/tecnologia/2017/03/10/actuali- dad/1489151406_512872.html
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality
4 Education: the luxury of studying a book written in 3D: https://retina.elpais.com/retina/2017/09/11/ innovacion/1505146948_382824.html
5 The year Instagram fell in love with Yayoi Kusama and his infinite rooms: https://smoda.elpais. com/placeres/yayoi-kusama-instagram-infini- ty-rooms-museos/
6 The Teatro Real broadcast "Madama Butterfly" on screens across Spain: http://www.lavanguardia. com/vida/20170607/423249425635/el-teatro-real- retransmite-en-pantallas-de-toda-espana-mad- ama-butterfly.html
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture