03 March 2014, 12:44 PM IST
Hiking through the Sahyadris, about 9 years ago with my friend Nitin Dhond of Wildernest-Goa, we passed close to some caves that he told me had rock cut paintings from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic phases, or around 20,000-30,000 BC, which had been found inside, and other evolutions including petroglyphs which certainly looked like early languages and messages.
Later on, I was shown photos, as the caves themselves were quite inaccessible. To me, once they were explained, they looked like early news media, since they did appear to report about issues like food, water, life, death, birth, entertainment, and even forms of power. All done, apparently, as a means to let other people know not just what they were doing, but also as a method of passing information and knowledge down to other people as well as future generations, without any friction, transactional costs, let or hindrance.
Anybody find a semblance to online social media of the sort that we see exploding on the internet?
One big similarity is that both forms of expression are placed out there in the public domain with some amount of effort and knowledge for all to benefit from. At no charge and with no middlemen, agents, publishers, editors or any other transactional aspects.
The other big similarity is the best use possible of the written word as well as pictures. Some of the pictures, if viewed in sequence, are actually like early movies - frame by frame progress and instructions.
Over the centuries, however, between the day and age of rock art and the internet, we've had papyrus, paper and film as the basic new mediums on which these messages were distributed. In each of these cases, in the name of "Intellectual Property Rights", we've seen additional layers of inefficiency brought in with a host of people and commercial entities in between doing everything possible to reduce access to information for people who did not have money or goods or services in exchange.
I would venture further - the evolution of these layers of inefficiency were co-terminus with the evolution of organiser centralised religions. One effect of religions was to segregate those who could have access to valuable information and those who could not.
The arrival of social media with its vast amount of free information for all who want it, whether they climbed the mountain to reach the cave or they hit a search engine is symbolical but similar, is one way to look at it. The even stronger advent of late, of self-publishing at very low prices and often zero price to readers and high royalties to writers, is the next evolution - akin to giving the rock artist a reward or a status in society.
As somebody who writes for pleasure as well as to try and share, money not being the primary objective, I've seen this in the many messages I get when my self-published books reach people who otherwise would have had to spend minor fortunes for picking up print hard copy versions. I've seen this when best of breed writers like Stephen King adopt this medium, self-publishing, and make the proceeds for a short novel or book on the subject of gun control, over to an organisation fighting the proliferation of guns, for example.
What do you think?
Sure, the medium is the message. Sure, the writer has to eat. But does the thick layer of inefficiency in the middle have to swallow the cream as well as starve the reader, too?
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Rock Art to Self Publishing
Dengan url
http://osteoporosista.blogspot.com/2014/03/rock-art-to-self-publishing.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Rock Art to Self Publishing
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar