What is ‘Post-digital’?

In this text Cramer looks at what post-digital is, origin of the term and how it have deeper implications. This was a lot easier to read due to the simple language used.

An aspect of this text that I really liked is actually near the end when Cramer revisits the meme of the typewriter in the park. Here we are presented with a logical re-purposing use of the typewriter – classified as ‘old’ tech – in a post-digital choice. This highlights an important point that Cramer is trying to make about what post-digital actually is;

…giving the ‘old’ technology a new function usually associated with ‘new media’, by exploiting specific qualities of the ‘old’ which make up for the limitations of the ‘new’.

This is essentially what new tech does, it attempts to improve upon the limitations of old tech. However, in this case the old tech is used to make up for the limitations of the new. That of which a laptop would have limited battery life and in order to provide stories while people wait would require him to print them out. So the most logical choice was a typewriter for that situation.

Now looking at the tutorial questions I want to note that having read this text I am not sure how to define post-digital anymore. But what I had thought was this; it is the continual development of works within the digital realm. As Cramer notes, ‘post’ does not signify the end, but it is rather ‘post-digitisation’ (the period after digitisation began).

This leads me to the second question about whether we currently live in a post-digital age. You could say both yes and no. We are in the stage of post-digitisation but we still have the choice between digital and analogue formats. What does it mean to be truly post-digital in the first place? Technology is developing at such a fast rate and in so many different fields that it would be difficult to determine the exact point at which we become ‘post-digital’.