We tend to go towards perfection of many kinds constantly in our lives. Technology gives us HD and megapixels for clearer images, higher sampling rates for better audio. Everything is better, faster, stronger. Or whatever.
But at the same time the rising popularity of the imperfections of the yesteryear (especially in visual and sound arts) are a thing that’s really hip today. Yeah, vintage is pretty hip, but it’s not really because of the hipsters, because most of them are way too young to feel nostalgic about these things. They kind of made it their style, but the world doesn’t follow just one group. And yet the world likes noise. The world likes vintage. The world likes slightly warmer colors in photographs, and grain, and smudged borders. Why?
As I said before, it cannot be nostalgia, because yeah, some of us (like me) remember the days of the 80’s point’n’shoot kodak’s but most of the internet now doesn’t. It cannot be just a trend too though. Why you ask ?
Well let me answer that.
A good example is with sound – you take a simple sine-wave and play it. It’s the most basic sound and it’s pretty boring. But when you add some whitenoise, and some crackles, hiss and vinyl distortion you get something far warmer, harmonic and what’s more important natural. Sure we see and hear the world mostly in HD, but we don’t want the reality to be exactly what we see and hear. Especially since it actually never is. Want proof ?
Go record a concert with your phone’s camera. The sound might be getting better with each year and each phone, but it’ll never beat being there. Even with the most pro equipment (like 20 microphones everywhere and preamps) it might sound clear but it still lacks something.
Another example – colors and noise in images. Take a simple square and paint it red. Then take another square, paint it red as well but add a small amount of noise to it. Which one looks “better” or “more natural” ?
In most cases it’s the noisy one, the imperfect one. Because the computer monitor is pretty perfect already, so everything that’s just one color (or even a gradient) looks kind of like plastic. And we don’t like plastic, right?
It’s not even about a regular texture on a color, it’s about making the color a little bit imperfect to make it more real. Because in real life if we look at a red square somewhere it won’t be 100% completely red, unless it’s printed on a glossy high quality paper and it’s not worn out in any way. But give it some time and it will look different.
Those imperfections are of course also present in the videos, with more and more artists adding noise, scratches and discoloration to their videos. And the results? Well we tend to like those videos more for some reason than the crisp and clear HD footage that’s well lit and almost resembles a plastic version of reality. The video below is of an iPhone app that let’s you record some vintage videos. If you watch it you’ll see that it can make even simple shots look nice, without anything going on in them. We’ll probably see a lot more of that vintage trend to come. Because vintage is (in our heads at least) closer to that warm reality we live in.