Madeline Epstein ’28, Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer

Ancient Greek and Roman marble statues in the MET (Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

We are living in ancient history. We learn history through textbooks and classes, but we understand it through museums that immerse us in the past. At every point in ancient history, there were people, animals, plants, or at least some sort of organism living who were only aware of the present, and couldn’t begin to conceptualize the future. Now, we can barely conceptualize the past. One day, we will become that past, and someone will have to look back on us. So, what will our descendants see when they want to learn? What will be left of us as a society? What from our digital age will be transferred to museums?

Looking at the modern museum, there is an obvious disconnect between us and the past. We have few famous artists and fewer marble statues; our art looks nothing like what we see in museums. We don’t create a lot of physical media anymore, so much is digital. While this makes art more accessible, it makes documenting it in museums more difficult. We don’t know how our videos, movies, games, photos, writing, art, and entire lives will be remembered by future generations. Even an art form dependent on a screen, cinema, gives little insight into the preservation of our history. Physical film now gets traded for digitized film-making, which is easier and cheaper. Art has always been hard to make, but we have now made it easy to lose. Few digital artists will make it to the halls of any museum of the future, not due to skill or legitimacy of the technique, but simply because digital art is not as easy to display in traditional museums.

However, the vinyl records you bought to hang on your wall or to simply listen to have a chance at survival. CDs perhaps have a better chance, their small shape and durability, even without extensive upkeep makes them a better artifact than records. Damaged or not, both serve to lengthen music’s lifespan. Despite the upkeep for physical music as well as its fragility, the fact that it is tangible music extends its lifespan. The trend of records coming back will save artists from dissolving into obscurity in the future.

There is an art form that is always trending and commonly has physical copies. Writing. Our books will become excerpts in textbooks and will become classic literature. How will these books be seen if not given the context of BookTok? How will museums handle literature in the future? Writing, once a pretentious art form, has become casual and accessible. With this, our writers, too, have come casual and accessible. This generation has no Wildes, Steinbecks, Bröntes or Kafkas. It is a nearly impossible standard to live up to, of course; the writers of the present aren’t equivalent to those of the past, the art form is completely different. However, the metamorphosis that literature has gone through, from classic to modern, is admirable. Museums will have such different works to display, the interpretation and perception of our writing will change what books will be preserved and what will be lost to time. The causality of writing will kill some sources and the accessibility will create new ones. Books give voices to those history silenced by allowing for conversational topics to be discussed, minorities seen, taboos pushed and norms teased, this recognition is a gift our future will appreciate. 

When we’re gone, museums will be littered with old technology, computers, CD players — anything big and bulky. Broken tablets will be pieced together in glass cages for all to see. Paintings will hang from the wall, while our descendants will try and figure out if it was for some god or not. Books will be open in stands and sold in gift shops. Records will line halls, CDs will fill up boxes. The digital age is the library of Alexandria, waiting for everything to be lost. We are burning, our media is in flames. Maybe there will be a hard-drive that has saved a movie or a tweet. Still, there is no promise that anything digital will remain. But physical media will prevail. So make art and make it tangible. Date every page in your notebook. Buy a physical copy of your favorite movie. Buy a record or a CD. Hold on to things you love and you might just be remembered forever.