One might be tempted to see e-books as the latest example of a
digital format chomping through analogue and rendering it obsolete, a la music and press. But things quickly get  complicated if you look closely at what’s going on. This article
suggests that actually, we’re more likely to read physical books if we’ve got a
kindle, while this suggests that its just that we tend to go for trashy genre stuff on e-readers and use Proust as
decoration. 

The reading public in private is lazy and smutty.
E-readers hide the material. Erotica sells well. My own downmarket literary
fetish is male-oriented historical fiction (histfic). Swords and sails stuff.
I'm happier reading it on an e-reader, and keeping shelf space for books that
proclaim my cleverness.

Whether or not ‘genre fiction is trash’ is beside the point
(well, not really – it's all sorts of wrong). More interesting is the way that
e-books make us return to real books with a renewed sense of appreciation. We still want them. We suddenly talk about showing off the nice ones, the ones we’re proud of.

And maybe there’s a comparison to be made with photos. We put a
hundred photos from a messy night out on Facebook – so does everyone else. The
result? 300 million photos on Facebook every day. But no-one wants to keep wedding
photos online alone – we want a leather-bound album, a set of glossy 7x5s -tangible evidence of the event. Maybe we want less of it, sure. But this physical real world stuff becomes something rare and unique.

I just have a hunch that the longer we live in the age of mass
digital reproduction, the more we'll return to physical objects. It's as if we're slowly learning to be amphibians – to live in physical and virtual reality at the same time – and to use them both, in different ways. Who knows how it will all play out. Maybe we'll all be hooked up to the matrix in 2020. In the meantime, some more cute
frogs (they're yawning!):

—–

(Thoughts courtesy of Planning Placement newbie James.)

What better way of understanding the possibilities of a new piece of technology, than playing with it? One of our creatives Katie Harrison has set up SON with the artist Charlotte Freeston to create music promos to do just that. Taking influence from the recent launch of the Vine app, SON used Vine as their concept and camera for their first promo for Rhosyn -Birds which premieres on Art Wednesday. 

Our lovely Katie says: “I am always fascinated by the creative tools that technology gives us, allowing us to become channels to tell wonderful stories. SON allows us to be nimble and daring and explore all these new possibilities. These learnings are applied back into my creative work at Wieden’s to help our clients push new boundaries.” 

On the lyrics, Charlotte notes: "The notion of becoming a bird is finding the freedom and independence from the normal ideals that have percolated into the collective cultural consciousness through the ‘cult’ of the media. We wanted to highlight our generations addiction and constraints with social media".

Inspired by Hockney’s Wolds series, Birds was shot simultaneously on four and nine iPhones housed in a makeshift structure. The Vines were then tweeted to a bespoke account using the #birds and captured on the desktop. The Vine loops were then manipulated and layered to highlight the notion of ‘cult’ through their repetition.

Stream Rhosyn's debut EP 'Elbow of Capture' here:http://soundcloud.com/rrrhosyn/sets/elbow-of-capture/