What are the merits of digitisation?
At a time when planning any excursion is a pipe dream, technology can relieve our travel itch.
Atoms and matter are analogous to digital output. Look at a smooth continuous surface through a microscope. What do you see? Vacuum. Now, zoom into this smooth image. What you will find before you are single-colour squares or pixels. Each colour represents a value from the 8-bit or 16-bit sequences we talked about. When viewed by itself, a solitary pixel does not amount to much. But the same pixel creates a mesmerising image once put together with the others.
Only a few years back, if you wanted to see Christ the Redeemer in Rio or the 4,000-year-old mummy at the Indian Museum in Kolkata, you had to make the trip. Not anymore. Thanks to Google Art & Culture, you can access them both anywhere, both at once even.
At a time when planning any excursion is a pipe dream, technology can relieve our travel itch.
How?
Let us talk about this little something called Google Arts and Culture (GAC).
It is an online platform that allows users to view images of artworks housed in partner museums worldwide. It enables a virtual visit to the gallery of each museum by using Google Street View or by clicking on the gallery floor plan. It is useful in site navigation.
GAC allows you to zoom in on a specific artwork and analyse it in greater detail. The user can also get more information about a work’s physical characteristics like size and material. Other options include viewing notes, the history of the artwork, and information about the artist. External links are provided by Google for users who want to learn more.
A Google login assists users in creating their own collection. They can compile many images and create their own gallery, so to speak.
While information is becoming increasingly binary, the physical and analogue world remains as is. Synchronously, the analogous world is made of atoms. Atoms in turn, are made up of protons and electrons, which are also like bit sequences.
GAC is not a museum or an academic institution that teaches art history. But what it does is broaden the concept of art digitisation through virtual tools and the internet. The use of the Art Camera and the 360 Degree Video demonstrate its efforts to create new experiences of art.
The expansion of art into the digital space opens many doors. Prime among them is the one to a fresh collaborative relationship between art history, museology, and art. As a result, the interpretations of analogous and digital complement one another.
Over the past year, the global health crisis caused by COVID-19 has resulted in society-wide shifts. Most businesses were forced to accelerate digital transformation to provide any or all services.
A McKinsey study showed that the current level of computer-based consumer interactions is three years ahead of the forecast. To continue being competitive, businesses have developed their products seven years before time. Furthermore, digitalisation has effected all organisational aspects of daily life. Workers and students are carrying out most tasks remotely. As a result, reduced mobility is promoted and so are online purchases and collaborations.
There are thus many merits of digitisation. Humans are creative but are bad at executing mechanical tasks with dexterity. Digitisation helps in automating those tasks. From switching on the AC while driving back home, to getting ice cubes with just the push of a button — humans have come a long way. Digitisation makes communication viable and contributes to the sharing of cultural information. Somewhere between writing letters and writing on each other’s Facebook wall, we all grew up!
For the last fifteen years, the music industry has seen a prevalence of online music piracy. This has reduced annual CD sales, a trend that has been exacerbated by consumers preferring to purchase music online rather than through traditional channels.
Aeons ago, people would enjoy live music. Then decades ago, came sound recording and radio, then CDs, the Walkman, the iPod, and finally, the smartphone.
To address the issue of piracy, the music industry has turned to music streaming sites. While many have been launched, none have proven to be more successful than Spotify.
Spotify is a music streaming service app that is available for both desktop and mobile devices. Customers can stream any song for free, the only cost being intermittent advertisements. They can receive an ad-free experience as well as benefits (such as the ability to create offline playlists) for a monthly fee.
Spotify launched in 2008. It offered consumers a solid option by providing a more convenient product to piracy at low costs. Music evolved from a live experience to a digital product, and eventually, to a cloud product.
Digitisation has provided many benefits to us. Technology can aid us with building safer environments when there are fewer opportunities for contact.
The past year also taught us that the reward for online purchasing is an expanded selection and efficient functionality. This exacerbated the desire for a personalised customer experience to be able to feel unique while in isolation.
Digitisation has made us realise several crucial things. One, that it is possible to collaborate and learn from a distance. Two, that this decentralisation can be a strength when it comes to creating more occasions to share one’s knowledge. It stimulates engagement with people who would otherwise be unable to take part.
Most importantly, we learned that changing one’s business model is not only possible, but it can also be an opportunity for those who can make decisions based on predictive analytics as well as discover potential bottlenecks which can be turned into strategic strengths.
‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.’ — Charles Darwin
About the Writer
Sana Paul is an undergraduate architecture student and writer at the Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, hailing from the cozy streets of Punjab. She has experience working at the India Lost and Found (ILF) by Amit Pasricha, and Rethinking The Future (RTF).
About the Editor
Nishtha Singh is an editor, writer and researcher in the fields of Philosophy of Language, Ethics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). She has trained as an editor at the Seagull School of Publishing, Calcutta and is a graduate of the Department of Philosophy, and the Hansraj College, University of Delhi (DU), India.
About the Illustrator
Diksha Garg is an undergraduate architecture student at the School of Planning and Architecture Bhopal, hailing from Chandigarh. She is an illustrator, graphic designer and writer. She has received a citation for G-Sen Trophy and a Juror’s Choice Award for Journalism Trophy by the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA), India.
