2. What is an archive? “a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people” “the place where such documents or records are kept” - Apple Dictionary
3. Archives and Publishing Publishing involves the structuring of information/media elements for preservation, distribution and access Whilst… The act of archiving the preservation of data/information that has value
4. ARCHIVE FEVER: “the desire to recover moments of inception: to find and possess all sorts of beginnings”… (Steedman’sDust, p. 5)
5. Derrida (1995) and Archive Fever How does different modes of publishing constitute institutions, modes of living, our sense of self, both individually and collectively? How does the structure of publishing change our experience? What are the consequences? Are we our own archives?
6. Modes of Publishing and Institutions Historical, religious and law texts constitute the social and individual institutions and practices Internet and Social Media as the general world archive facilitating the globalisation of the institutions and their culture and society
7. Structure of Publishing and Experience Looking for the easiest way to record, store, access and retrieve archives Disappearance and Emergence of different forms of archives Embracing digital archives as they are time, cost and space efficient
8. Your Archive = You | You ≠ Your Archive Photo Albums, bookshelves, music collection, iTunes playlist, diaries, blogs etc is a collection of information and experiences about YOU It physically constitutes the foundation of your character and past experiences But it has been selected and recorded thus it is not full picture of one’s personality and life
9. Consequences The disappearance of the static archive The location of the physical archive (such as a server) and legal jurisdiction The control of access and sharing of archives
10. Consequences Require external tools to retrieve archive BUT! We have created positive and extended ways of remembering
11. New vs Old Archives: Apartheid Archive “…Examines the nature of the experiences of racism of South Africans under the old apartheid order…” “attempts to fill the gaps interspersed between the ‘grand’ narratives recorded by the TRC” It can usurp and destroy validity of previous recounts and archives
12. Omeka “free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions”
Notes de l'éditeur
Apple Dictionary defines an archive as*Point 1*It is also the physical location and *point 2*
Archiving makes up a large process of publishing. The noticeable difference between the two is that publishing is the way in which data and information is made available to the public, whilst archiving involves the preservation of such information that has cultural, historical or evidentiary value. This means that we must take into consideration that archives are fragments of the whole data and information.
Archive Fever was first elaborated by Jacques Derrida in 1995 in his book Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. I found that Steedman summed up what Archive fever very well with the quote
There are three main questions I would like to address in this video blog regarding archives: - This includes how media intervene in our memory and identity
Traditional print media such as historical texts act as a basis for individual and collective memory and experience. Recounts of what was acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, such as that in the bible, provide a basis for social practices both individually and collectively, and as such they serve as a basis of authority in which it forms and shapes the social foundations and culture.However, as the digital era flourishes, so does archive fever. New modes of publishing such as the Internet provide access and ability to individuals in accessing archives at a global scale, constantly and simultaneously changing, dissolving and integrating behaviours, cultures and societies. An example of how modes of publishing can affect existing institutions is how Australians embraced the “American culture” through the introduction of the television in the 1950s.
The efficacy and viability of an archive relies on several factors including how it has been maintained, how wide the access is and how it can be controlled, and how we can retrieve and store this data/information. So, we look for *POINT 1* and thus we embrace new forms of media and publishing as it creates better experiences with space, time and space of the published work (such as an archive). Like the issues surrounding the evolution of publishing I have previously blogged about, the structure of HOW the archive is published and our experiences with it are important in examining archives. This leads to the “disappearance and emergence of different forms of archives”Such an example is ereaders and tablets. The iPad combines your address book, music and video library, books, websites and pages, documents, newspapers, making this multimedia device act as a viable replacement of all the previous forms of archives.
So does your personal archive constitute the whole of yourself?Does your own Facebook = Archive of YOUIt is a historical collection of what constitutes your life, both in past and present form.Essentially a physical portrayal of you, but it is NOT you. They are fragments of the original experience.Mathew Ogle blogged that “As people, we are made up of the sum total of all the experiences in our lives and in the lives of those we love. Being able to track what’s happening right now — amplified and revitalized by the real-time web — is important and will undoubtedly remain so. But by recording what’s happening now, we’ve also created rich but neglected personal archives whose potential we’re only beginning to explore.”
So what are some of the consequences of embracing archive fever?Since the web is ever changing,digital archived files may change its form and original state due to the dynamic nature in which data and information can be editted and republished online. The provenance of such archives can bring questions of validity.How can we prosecute those in say non-extradition countries when they violate laws regarding to archives and publishing of information?Access to information and data which in the past has been a sign of authority and power … Wikileaks? Can we guarantee people are not abusing the information shared? MySchool website, what would parents do with information they previously did not have? Would it impact on the school the child goes to?
As we start to rely on different modes of publishing, we rely more on the medium itself to retrieve the data and information. One such example is the requirement of access to the internet and computer to retrieve “Blog entries” from websites. This also includes external servers, in which are information is stored. How can we physically retrieve it?However digital archives such as blogs and social media sites also provide us with easier and extended ways of remembering the past as we embrace the publishing of our personal archives to facebook.
Archivists can take advantage of Omeka to create digital archives with their own collections and documents and allow others to create user-generated content. One such example of this is the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank which “collects and preserves the stories of katrina and rita”
