[etage3]

The excessive detail is a necessity and a precaution. Researchers need that information (textual genetics or any art history for instance, maybe future archeology). A message can't be separated from the form it embodied; you need both to understand how an artwork has been received. Besides, you always want to preserve more information than what is needed today, just in case new ways to exploit data appear later. That's what archeology does when it refuses to exploit some sites and preserves them for later : maybe the current techniques destroy data, so we save some sites for later - just in case.

[specialist]

> A message can't be separated from the form it embodied

The medium is the message. (h/t Marshall McLuhan)

The interaction between tools, artists, and expression is endlessly fascinating.