Author: Cristina Gusmuller

I found really interesting the readings of this week, mostly because I realized how my own ideas of archiving and “preservation” are related to a colonial construction and to a written culture, though I am from a country that suffers exactly from that and also has a strong embodied culture (Brazil). Diana Taylor’s and Foucault’s texts made me think about History classes I had during my school years, when our Brazilian history was taught from its “beginning”, which was considered the year of 1500 when the country was “discovered” by the Portuguese. It was only at the end of high school that we had a professor including indigenous history and indigenous culture in our History class, as before that we learned about that in Geography class only as a cultural aspect of Brazilian society, but not as a Historical aspect.

Besides, indigenous (or should I say native?) repertoire is present in our language, food, music body language, but when we discuss it with other people it is mostly to talk about what we can document, thus, archive. Because many of its culture and knowledge are unfortunately really disappearing, I believe the “archival impulse” has an important aspect in “archiving” it. But, as Taylor points out, there are probably other ways to ensure the permanence of this repertoire respecting their system of organization and transmission, therefore leaving the “archive fever” aside. In this regard, Tara Robertson’s discussion about what to show, how to give access and how to organize archives is really relevant, as, again, we (and I include myself) tend to believe that there is only one correct and efficient method of archiving as well as one “place” to keep knowledge.

In this connection, Pierre Nora’s concepts of “lieux” and “milieux de mémoire” and Taylor’s opinion regarding the polarization of these concepts, as well as the polarization of history and memory, makes me believe there are ways to transmit knowledge and culture that can prevent or at least reduce the maintenance of a repressive social order. This includes trying to break the rational tendency of dividing and polarizing knowledge and though. Furthermore, reducing our anxiety to save everything, being able to acknowledge that an ethical and well discussed procedure of archiving is more important, might be an interesting path to take. Quality more than quantity.

The readings from this week made me realize two very different paths that seems to be happening with the use and conception of archive and media storage nowadays. As the text “Arks of Apocalypse” explains, we are living in the Anthropocene epoch, meaning that we know we are destroying our ecosystems so we are trying to save everything we can, creating the many repositories places around the world (repositories of seeds, animals, ice) in the last years. On the other hand, the internet and the digital media have been changing the idea of the archive. The archival media memory is, as Wolfgang Ernst reveals, intrinsically related to a time-based organization instead of a spatial one, becoming what he calls “de-monumentalized”.

It seems that these repositories places are the current stronger example of archive in the “traditional” sense, meaning a process of choosing what to preserve (and what not to) with a place to carefully storage everything, in which access is not easy (physically and bureaucratically), and in which there is a very linear and written-based order to organize, whereas the internet and the digital media is more like an anarchive, with no specific place and in which discontinuity and ephemerality are part of. The first one gives us a feeling of stability that can save all we need (in an unstable world) while the second is a “constant dynamic flow of information” in which we have to deal with absence (p. 110).

I wonder why these two almost opposite processes are happening at the same time and how can one give the other any “release” of their own processes.

I found very interesting how photography, since its origins with the stereograph and other formats, had “the issue of the archive”. As already discussed in other classes, we often think that the problem of excess of data / documents / material is only a question of our time, however John Tagg’s text presents the fascinating discussion around the mass production of stereographs in 1859. Thus, classification and organization of photographs and stereographs were since the beginning an issue to be solved, and the handbook The Camera as Historian represents this issue very well. It does so, mainly because it shows how every choice of classification system reveals its power relations, social rules and, as Tagg says (inspired by Foucault) “the space of the file is the space of disciplinary machine”.

With this in mind, it was a great discovery for me to think about the idea of “counterarchives”. Though the commandment aspect is intrinsically part of any archive, the idea that “forgotten” or “lost” archives have the power to create a new narrative about society, especially the ones that suffered from a regime of terror, made me realize how important each archive is in relation to the discussion of truth. The fact that “Archives still retain, therefore, a particular and perhaps privileged relation to the field of truth…” is an engaging form to relate with archives, and it improves the discussion about History and narration. Yet, it was not very clear to me what the author meant with the statement that “archive cannot be taken over but has to be smashed.” I understand his concern about the danger of using archives in the study of history as an element of real truth, however the idea of “smashing” was not clear (maybe an English issue for me?)

Finally, I would like to add a comment about Douglas Crimp’s text concerning photography collection and the NYPL case. I found very interesting how, when Julia van Haaften started organizing the photography collection in 1977, photography “changed” its role, gaining autonomy from the document / archive / subject it was coming from, and embodying an aesthetic element. Thus, becoming art. When the author gives the example of Cartier-Bresson’s photographs that would not only represent the information in the photo, but also the expression of an artist, I ask to myself: if each photo has this “double” aspect (information and artistic intension or interpretation), how should we organize them? If until now photography has usually been classified through author’s name, date or subject, would it be possible to create a classification related to the aesthetic experience? If so, which “elements” of the artistic interpretation would be used? And then, after all, wouldn’t these topics of organization also reveal its apparatus?

I was really impressed and inspired by Warburg’s library organization and thoughts, especially because every time I had to organize my books at my very small personal library, it was a challenge to figure out which way would be the best: by author’s name? Country? By subject? Or the order I wanted to read? After many thoughts and no decision, the books were somehow organized in an unorganized way between a rational and a subjective orderliness. Warburg’s organization was very well thought and structured one, but had a very subjective side related to our daily memory organization and connections. In relation to that, his library was circular and the circle is very symbolic for a never-ending form of knowledge. Thus, a circular library gave his method of organization another mnemosyne dimension, as “(…) his library was memory, but ‘memory as organized matter’.” (p.201).

Prelinger’s Library has also a “circular order” in is organization through the idea of serendipity, in which we have the opportunity to become flaneurs in our own discovery. It gives the feeling of an infinity of connections, just like the connections we make in our head. Besides, the complementary relation between digital access and analog browsing also made me think about this circular dimension, in which one aspect is connected to the other and vice-versa.

On that account, it was even more powerful to read about the BookOps and the ReCAP, and also to watch “Cold Storage” about the Harvard Depository. Being part of the library infrastructure and logistic, and with the necessity of efficient storage and retrieval, its organization has to be rational. Therefore, everything is more “square” than “circular” in its organization. I wonder if, with the increasing number of books that need to be storage, there’s a way to still create an efficient logistic that is less money-space-time focused, giving “off-site” storages a more circular aspect.

If books are and have to be “a thing on a shelf” in those places, is there a way to better connect them with “a topical and material unit of knowledge” that they are in the libraries? Is there a circular logistic able to keep receiving all the number of books and still maintain this landscape a real discovery experience for human knowledge?

Not directly related to this week discussion, but very close to that, Wisemen film “Ex Libris” about the New York Public Library is a great reflexion on what libraries are and mean nowadays, focusing on their role in the society and in how “far” this role is, as books are not the main element of them anymore. A must-see!