The structure of appreciating video and audio is changing as we are no longer required to experience them in real time. This is not an entirely new phenomenon in the 2010s, but the transformation of the way we experience, appreciate and learn about time-based arts has been changing for many years and the rate of change – its intensity – has been accelerating with the development of digital formats.
A film or movie is fixed media in comparison to a play in a theatre, but a few years ago it was difficult if not impossible to experience a film in any way other than in real-time in a cinema or latterly on the television. With the introduction of video recording, it became possible to rewatch that film as many times as one wanted. It was even possible, if inconvenient and irritating, to move around the film arbitrarily. Digital video recording and playback made this easier. This process was also reflected in developments in audio, through wax cylinders, bakelite and vinyl discs, cassettes, CDs, audio files on computers and now files streamed from network servers.
This has certainly changed the way we experience, choose and acquire digital versions of these resources, but what has it done, is it doing, or is it going to do to the resources themselves?