Aere perennius apart, decay happens to all material works, and devastatingly to manuscripts, just one example being the fate of classical Tamil poetry on insect-riddled palm-leaf.
I thought of collage also because it might be considered the most ephemeral of media often composed out of scraps. I can't find it now but there's an essay on the conservation of Kurt Scwitters's collages. Those recovered by his son from a mildewed chest in Norway were in surprisingly good condition. With his proximity to Dada you might expect him to be more knockabout with regard to durability, but he knew the virtues of good materials.
(Sport for me is in a different zone, not that that matters. But actually the recordings let you see more than the spectator or even the umpire or referee can. What you say is true of acting - televised versions of play performances are often weirdly hollow. We may be grateful some of them exist as partial records but they're not the same thing at all.)
> On 30 Aug 2016, at 11:34, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> Yes, the story about the collage makes sense, if the effect was damaged. Some artworks are designed to decay, even Duchamps' Bride, and certainly decay is an important part of the natural cycle. But sometimes we know, or think we know, when our pieces still have work to do.
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> I often think about those who devoted their lives to arts or sports where a record is, or was until recently, a quite impossible thing. The dancers and actors, especially. (Even today, a film of a dance company is a most unsatisfactory record. With this art of the moment, you really had to be there.)
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> Interesting topic - I do appreciate David's interventions for starting these hares.
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