Bjork’s latest project landed in my stream by a post from Kenley Neufeld on Google+. There are so many aspects of that one sentence I could discuss and yet I will discuss almost none of them. Today I want to discuss the fact that the term “format” has no rational meaning for a new type of work that is being created today. Let me break this down for you.
If you are lucky enough to own an iPad, go download Bjork’s “Biophilia” app. If you aren’t lucky enough to have an iPad, find someone who does, have them download it (it’s free), and play with it for a while. If you don’t have an iPad, or know someone who does, you must live on Mars, but so be it. Bear with me as I try to explain this to you.
“Biophilia” is not a book. It is not an album. It is not a game. It does not logically belong to any category I can name except, perhaps, an “application”. And that is seriously unsatisfying as a type of creative content. It doesn’t seem to get to anything useful, or descriptive, or helpful. Perhaps slightly better is the nomenclature of “work” as that is what it is. It is a work of art — digital, interactive, unlike anything we’ve seen before, but still undeniably a work.
But from the librarian point of view, it’s even worse than that. It isn’t static. It has a life — not everything is available yet, so it will change over time. How do we categorize such a thing? How do we describe it? How do we collect and preserve it? All of these are difficult questions that have no clear answers. About the only thing I know now is that “format” has lost all meaning for this type of work.
About Roy Tennant
You might look to the work of the Electronic Literature Organization and other attempts to preserve and provide access to amorphous works of art.
http://www.eliterature.org/
Looks like the team itself is struggling to name the format, though they are at least looking for one:
“Discussing some of its highlights, director Alex Poots said he had been trying to work with Bjork for over a decade, and that she had “been waiting for technology to catch up with her”. The Icelandic singer will be in residence in Machester for three weeks and stage a new show called Biophilia, which Poots describes as “a union of music, nature and science”. For it, she has created the world’s “first app album” in collaboration with Apple. Poots said that the app will let users play games and explore further aspects of the music.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/mar/18/bjork-albarn-manchester-international-festival
Much as I liked the overall experience of Biophilia, it really is an advertisement. When you tap a star for “features” you get extensive data about a song.
It clearly does have a format. iPad app.
that sounds like the PC “game” I had from Sting, frontman of The Police, where you clicked on hotlinks and a tiny animated Sting would lead you through his dreams and poems and bits of wisdom and occasionally play bits of videos and songs before you eventually threw up.
I had one for the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge, too, that required less spitting up.
This reminds me of Peter Gabriel’s interactive CD-ROM Xplora 1: Secret World from 1993. Anyone else remember CD-roms?!
Sorry, but Bjork is late to the party when it comes to this. If you want serious challenge to preservation, check these guys out—working on their second such release and light years ahead:
http://bluebrainmusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/national-mall.html
I spoke about this at the RBMS PreConference in BR this year.