Diasporic Archives

This Chapter draws from studies in geography and anthropology, diasporic and postcolonial studies to explore the operation of transformation discourse within the archive showing also the importance of the emergence of a hybrid methodology for the presentation of cultural origin, contexts of digital displays and interpretation of archival materials. In particular, the chapter looks into the use of participatory forms of appraisal in the context of the creation of community archives. The case studies for this chapter include Thomas Allen Harris’s multimedia community engagement archival project Digital Diaspora Family Reunion (DDFR); ‘Creating Collaborative Catalogues’, a collaboration between Ramesh Srinivasan, Robin Boast, and Jim Enote; and a number of educational projects by the Museum of the African.

A Brief History of the Archive

This Chapter analyzes the historical evolution of the archive throughout the centuries, looking at different archives, archiving methodologies, practices and technologies, including theories around provenance. In particular, the chapter how the archive, traditionally referring to a site and/or a body of documents, evolved through the introduction of different systems of categorization, mechanicization, preservation, data analysis and broadcast, to encompass, often concurrently, a broad, but inter-related number of practices and technologies that are traditionally considered separately from the archive. The exponential growth of archives thus produced a certain fluidity and potential inter-changeability between these forms.

The Art of Archiving

This Chapter explores how archival methodologies have been used, especially after the 1930s, to generate environmental or process-led artworks and how art has influenced our understanding of what constitutes an archive. The Chapter looks at practices of accumulation, collection and curation, focusing in particular on the cabinet of curiosity to show how, among other cultures of collection and exhibition, it acts as a predecessor to archival art, including a number of time capsules. The Chapter also shows how the cabinet acted as predecessor to how we present, document and archive ourselves through social media today. The apparatus of the archive is presented as the main tool we use to frame, preserve, disseminate, and aestheticize our lives, showing how we increasingly act as citizen archivists. The case studies for this chapter include works by Michel Duchamp; Robert Morris; Andy Warhol; Ant Farm and sosolimited.

Archives as Archaeological Sites

This Chapter shows how archaeology offers a set of translating and mediating practices that help us to build an understanding of the apparatus of the archive as an amalgam of materials that may have been produced at different points in time. To unearth the archive as a site, the chapter introduces an archaeological toolkit including elements such as survey; excavation; media archaeology and remediation. The chapter also shows how the archive operates as strata. In particular, the chapter focuses on the capacity of the archive to facilitate the production and transmission of our presence, our present, and our identity. By analyzing Lynn Hershman Leeson’s !R.A.W. project archaeologically, the chapter shows the inter-relatedness of materials and the media used to frame them, unpacking how archives ought to be read contextually as inter-archives.

(A)live Archives

This Chapter looks at the role played by transmission of the archive through the body, drawing from performance studies, bioart, database aesthetics and history of science to look at what becomes of the archive in the era of genomic experimentation. Drawing on economics, the chapter establishes the role played by the archive within the digital economy showing how the archive evolved for each of the industrial revolutions that occurred since the 18th century. Additionally, the Chapter analyzes the role played by the archive in the development of smart objects within the internet of things. The case studies for this chapter include work by the Musée de la Danse; George Legrady; Natalie Bookchin; Eduardo Kac; Christine Borland; and Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Infinity Engine, in which the human being has become its own (a-)live archive, one that, through regenerative medicine, can be modified inside out.

Architecture, Memory, and the Archive

This Chapter draws on literature on memory and history to analyze how the archive operates as a memory laboratory facilitating the (re-)creation and transmission of different types of memories, from personal to collective, from primary to secondary. Drawing from literature on Embodied Simulation Theory, the Chapter also shows that archives can give us direct access to the world of others. Crucially, the Chapter shows that after the Second World War we have become increasingly aware of our roles as witnesses. A temporal framework based on literature drawn from anthropology, geography and human computer interaction on mapping and map-making is then used to facilitate the design of mixed reality environments. The case studies for this chapter include The Jewish Museum in Berlin; the archiving tool CloudPad; and the trail building tool Placeify.