This has been brought up from time to time; it was discussed at the
Incubation conf. a few years ago. I agree - it _is_ an unarchival
world, and I think the emphasis on archiving is similar to the
emphasis on eternity & the fear of death - look at all those photo
departments years ago that insisted on 'archival prints' so they'd
stand the test of time - improvisational musicians, just about any,
know the value and general absence of those evenings when no one was
recording, it's whatever, in the moment. For my own work I upgrade
backup and when I can transfer protocols but after I'm gone that will
be it. When 'I hope not' and of course 'I hope not' I end up
questioning myself in this regard - what DNA juice is squeezing
endless labyrinths of time out of me? I'm frightened as hell about
death and my work revolves around that fright & yet I know rationally
no amount of archive will reconstitute anything, certainly not
presence. The Vietnam War was one of the most archived in history and
the radical re-rights are still doing what's being done to the
Holocaust - denial - two centuries from now Holocaust (of any sort)
studies will focus on 1939-45 or thereabouts as most likely mythical.
If we're going to archive, why not worry more about DNA - those
attempts which I support to resurrect literally the thylacine,
Tasmanian tiger? Other species to follow in time - we have to leave
something behind us beyond slaughter. Again in relation to archive - a
recent, in fact two days' ago, report indicates the onslaught of Iraqi
archaeological sites/museums etc. continues with increased fury -
nothing is protected but the national museum & that has the doors
welded shut. Our energy should, I think, be devoted far more to the
preservation of lifeforms on the planet, archiving the real, what's
left of the wilderness (I don't want to get into deconstruction here)
- we should be out there in preservation, some of us are I think. But
why, among digital artists and arts, isn't preservation itself
questioned to a greater extent? And what is the source of our fear in
this regard? - Alan
On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 20:41:32 +1300, The Paul Annears
<the.paul.annears@gmail.com> wrote:
There is another related question: why preserve anything (of the
internet) at all?
I recently looked for archived versions of The Concise Model and found
some pages and some broken links. Not an accurate or complete or even
indicative sampling of The Model. There were cute baby photos that I
had forgotten, and a few hints of what was to come.
Yes, the curatorial classes like to conserve and to archive, and an
admirable impulse it is. Otherwise, for example, we would not know
that 'New Zealand' and 'Australia' (to name just two of many examples)
were thriving orgies of peoples and cultures well before the Euro-led
holocausts.
To archive, to conserve, and to chose this rather than that is an
unavoidable urge, not just of the conservator, not only of the human,
not only of what we understand to be 'the living'. It is an clearly a
primitive urge of matter.
However the unarchiveable Sun rises and sets on an essentially
unarchiveable world and I think that it would be wonderful if the web
was not archived except sporadically and imperfectly with unconscious
bias and that it became, in that way, a virtual parallel to and
acknowledgement of the real world.
A transient part-world, dimly apprehended by its inhabitants, awash
with propagandist history and of course hugely defective of memory.
> Paul Annear