In a piece for the Huffington Post, Govindini Murty takes a look at how digital files are often stored by users without hard copies or backups. She looks at the constant changing technology of computers and software and asks if any of our cultural memories are safe in the digital age.
In exploring this issues, she brings Side by Side into the discussion saying that it is one of the best examinations of the digital revolution’s impact on the art of movies that she has seen. With respect to the question at hand she says:
Side by Side speculates as to whether our digital moviemaking output will potentially be unreadable in the near future due to the escalating pace of technological change. As Michael Goi, recent President of the American Society of Cinematographers, points out in the film, there have been more than eighty video formats to date – and many of them cannot even be read today. By contrast, archivist Ed Stratmann of George Eastman House notes that he can still take out a film reel from 1895 and play it on a film projector today.
The entire article can be read here.