RE: [-empyre-] Preservation: personal and institutional

["::|| damien frost ||::" <damien@stickygum.com>]

While i agree with Tom's thoughts on meanings being shifted and mutated 
in the context of an archive, I think sometimes too much credence or 
attention is given to the collection or the archive as an artwork in and 
of itself. I'm thinking here of people like Jim Shaw's collection of 
thrift store paintings that when hung in a gallery is credited to him, 
or even Australian artist Brenda L Croft who in a recent exhibition 
collected slides her father (or his acquaintances) took during his 
travels that she found in a box after his death. But while she didn't 
take the photos, the images are credited to her as if in by assembling 
the collection she has somehow gained authorship over the works. I 
actually find this quite strange. It's an area i feel slightly 
uncomfortable about myself - presenting other people's "images" online 
and without permission, but certainly i would never claim authorship 
over these images themselves or even copyright over the collection. It's 
slightly tangental but there's nothing that makes me madder when i'm in 
an ancient history section of a museum and told i'm unable to take 
photographs because it's a "copyright issue" when quite often the works 
were stolen from tombs or burial grounds in the first place.

Another issue i find interesting both with found footage and found 
photos from the early 1900's is that often people talk about it as 
presenting a snapshot of everyday life, when infact the prohibitive 
costs of the medium meant that only the wealthy could really afford to 
be taking snapshots or home movies and even then, i think the situations 
where they took the images were quite forced. Which is not to say you 
don't get a glimpse of the everyday in that, but i don't think the 
"snapshots" are as random and "everyday" as they later became. An 
interesting point too, is that as more and more people take up digital 
photography - the amount of contemporary found photos will probably 
become rarer i imagine. I seem to recall reading something where (i 
think it was) the Australian Picture Library were concerned with the 
rise of digital photography replacing the average family snapshot and 
that the printing of digital photos was much rarer and done so on paper 
that was less than archival meant that the historical resources of the 
future would have greater trouble looking back and taking a snapshot of 
what average Australians were wearing or how they lived at a certain 
time. Admittedly i don't think things are quite that dire, but still 
it's an interesting thought.

As far as organising the archive of Object Not Found, i've mostly left 
things pretty random, keeping the photos and postcards in their own 
collections which is how they were given to me or how they were found. 
But there's no organisation of the photos within those galleries unless 
they were in an album in which case i'll place them in the rough order 
that they were in the album - it's something i've thought about over the 
years, placing the works in a more chronological order or by theme, but 
it kind of ruins the surprise of what will come next. I often worry too 
about placing my own little commentary next to photos - maybe it's a 
little disrespectful and certainly it can be tiring (to read that is) so 
i've tried to limit this a little in fear of my personal imprint being 
too large or distracting.

I Like Clare's Dolce Vita Fellini filing story. I sometimes write 
messages or stories on the back of postcards and put them back in the 
rack at the cafe, or when getting photos back from the developer, put a 
photo (that i don't like) under a car windshield wiper thinking that i'm 
giving something "found" back, when actual fact i'm probably just 
littering. On a train once i sat down and next to me taped to the window 
was a drawing of a castle with "for you" written on it. At the time i 
thought how appropriate, whoever did this would never have realised the 
person finding it would actually collect this sort of thing and put it 
on a website. then somehow i managed to lose it.
take care
-d





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