Essay: The digital death of collecting

The constructive relationship between consumer and culture goes in both directions. When we find something meaningful enough to save, to collect it, the action both etches it a little deeper into our hearts and it also creates a context around the artifact itself, whether song, image, or video — and context not just for ourselves but for other peop... See more

Benjamin’s library was a personal monument, the same kind that we all construct of things we like or identify with. Its importance was dependent on permanence — collections are made up of things that we own, that don’t go away unless we decide they should. “Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects,” Benjamin wrote. “... See more