Thematically, I have written a few posts recently about how I feel that we have sleepwalked into a digital panopticon of our own making…(yes, obviously a slight change from the sound and music posts I typically do). However, I believe there is a connection between both areas, and it is always something which is on my mind, and well…this is my blog after all. I feel that we seem to have entered a period in which we now live inside a fragile digital archive, where everything that matters to us, from our work, our money, our identities, our memories, our art and even a journal of our performative emotions…only exists as digital data…. data represented by binary 1s and 0s or ephemeral electrical pulses, without even a sense of place. No actually physical location but scattered across servers and data centres we neither see nor control. My lifetime of photographs, music, compositions, films, writing (yep even this post!), and public and private conversations are now represented existentially as a flickering pattern of switches on a bunch of rented servers, liable to vanish in an outage, a security breach, or a government or corporation (most likely) policy change. I have allowed a large part of my lifetime (thankfully I was born pre-internet so not everything is digital) to be owned by and controlled at the whim of a bunch Tech Bros and the vagaries of digital storage. When you start to look at it this way, we see that the the problem is not only an individual one…governments and corporations are no less dependent to this arrangement of rented silicon transistor switches. These days we have hospitals that cannot treat us without access to digital records, banks that can no longer trade without networks, payments which can’t be made with cash (happened to me recently when trying to buy a drink in a shop) and government states which cannot govern without databases. The same trap that ensnares us also binds the very institutions we assume are stable.
The question is not only how we back up, as I think many of us aren’t too bad at this, but what we build, and what we destroy.
Analogue Redundancy vs. Digital Fragility
Looking at the analogue phone connection on my wall, long since abandoned for WhatsApp and mobile calls, I began to wonder that when governments dismantle existing analogue infrastructures…closing post offices, ripping up copper phone lines, ending cash systems, all activities which are currently happening, I don’t buy into the argument they are “modernising.” Modernising and improving is of course great, but in this situation it feels like that they are removing the fallback, the redundancy, the slower but resilient channels that once made our societies durable and upon which these newer digital systems were built. I just feel that at some point, there still has to be something analogue as we are still analogue beings. We (currently) do not live as just profiles, passwords, or data points, even if that is how the world increasingly tries to convince us that is what we are. We currently live through bodies, memories, gestures, rooms, objects, weather, voices, emotions, touch and decay. Digital systems are useful and in some ways imperative, but they are also kind of brittle. One broken drive, one lost password, one discontinued platform, one unpaid subscription, and whole parts of your life can vanish. Of course analogue things are far from perfect, but they also have a stubbornness to them, they decay, they get grumpy, they need some tlc from time to time, but on the whole, they often just sit there, gathering dust. As they age, they just wait, and often, that is enough…and if not they can be bodged or fixed to work again (albeit not always in their former glory, but not gone for ever).
What gets me is how the removal of landlines in favour of VOIP, or the closure of rural banking branches in favour of apps, is celebrated as progress, but each cut severs a safety net and a sense of contetcion to the real world outside the simulation. In a blackout, in a cyberattack, in a collapse of trust, this “modernised” digital infrastructure fails absolutely. Where as analogue systems are slow old folk, costly (like some old folk), resistant to scale. But they are also resilient. They can survive when networks fail, they can be quickly patched, hotwired, shorted. To me they embody continuity of the real. Their destruction in the name of efficiency is less progress than planned vulnerability particularly in uncertain times.
The Problem of Digital Identity
Without wanting to open a whole can of worms (or perhaps these is need for a much longer post), currently Digital ID is presented as convenience, as seamless access to all services. But with your identity bound solely to a network of data, then your identity is contingent on connectivity. What happens if access fails? If your biometric data is corrupted, your credentials hacked, your government database locked? You cease to then cease to not metaphorically, but administratively and perhaps that then is the same. It becomes an existential question, I am digital therefore I am?
I strongly believe that a society that makes identity conditional on digital access produces citizens who are only as real as the server permits, which I am sure would suit many. To lose access is to lose recognition, rights, the ability to act as a subject in the world, too lose you existence. However let’s put that to one side for the moment and perhaps think about what we should (could) all be doing. I thinkn that just having “backups” is insufficient, as storage is not security. For me, at a higher level Governments should try to maintain analogue infrastructures alongside digital ones: some paper records, landlines, physical archives and cash. Not as nostalgia, but as a form or future resiliance. Mega-corporations should not own any part of the cultural archive, there should be community-controlled infrastructures, public digital commons, and open standards. We should all know how our identities, records, and histories are being stored and who is accessing them, as well as alternatives exist if these systems fail. The big institutions such as museums, libraries, universities etc, should invest in preservation beyond the cloud and dgital formats and look at media that will endure without constant proprietary updates.
At a larger level, I feel that the bigger danger is not just collapse but control of data, in a world where identity, assets, and records are fully digital is a world where you can be erased. To entrust all our memories, all identity, all value to digital infrastructures is to give up real existence. It is to allow our whole being to be written in sand, at the mercy of unknown powers.
The Answer
So what should be done?
Try and keep the analogue alive, not as a strange or hipster nostaligc fetish, but as serious fallback solution. As hard as it might be, try and use local services and cash.
Build parallel systems so that now all assets are being held hostage on the cloud.
Treat digital ID with suspicion it deserves, yes of course it offers convenience, but convieience at the price of existential risk. Identity should never never be connect solely to any form of digital access.
We need to ask: What happens when the power goes out? What happens when the server fails? If there is no answer beyond “trust us,” then the system itself is unsafe.
What might we do individually?
Keep an analogue archive.
Quite simple really…print photographs, keep hard copies of key documents, writings, and artworks. Keep your CDs, DVDs, Tape, VHS, 8 Tracks. Musicians record a copy of all your tracks on to something analogue. Don’t assume the cloud is permanent.Preserve multiple formats.
Store music, films, writing, and work in different media, of course use digital files (maybe on SD cards or USB sticks), physical drives, even tape or print. Redundancy is the key.Maintain cash.
Perhaps try and keep money in physical form on or around you. Relying solely on digital payment systems leaves you powerless in outages or when access is denied.Resist forced upgrades.
Hold onto technologies that still function: CD/DVD players, landlines, radios. This old media often works when the computers fail.Learn analogue skills.
Map-reading, letter-writing, repairing, gardening, cooking. making music without machines.Diversify identity.
Don’t let all of your “self” live online. Perhaps we should all try and build small communities, friendships, and networks that exist offline, not only on platforms.Own your storage.
Use external hard drives, local servers, even physical notebooks. Reduce reliance on corporate clouds.Practice absence.
Create periods of deliberate disconnection and reclaim time from the machine.Build local commons.
Participate in community archives, libraries, or zine projects as collective memory is harder to erase.Stay hybrid.
Of course I am not saying abandon digital tools, just never rely on them alone. Keep one foot in the real world.
Good luck!