Re: [-empyre-] In the year 2525 - Using the web archives

[Lucio Agra <agra21@click21.com.br>]

I think the point here is, and I quote:

"In the "now,"  however, if we as a culture, or as individuals ever lose
the drive to collect, archive and store 'ourselves', it would be a sure
sign that we had laid down and given up."

One of the characteristic traces of "people who are
> inquisitive, interested, concerned, flawed, curious, questioning and
> human" is that tendance to collect and classify (even the net has appeared
from a will like this). I remember the works of the Russian Avant-Garde. Before
the end of 80's, specialists all around the work would take as correct the
assumption that a great part of russian art of 20's was lost. Nevertheless, the
opening of Museums archives, Hermitage's basements, etc. revealed an astonishing
variety of works still alive, so  to say. An exhibition with 14 curators in
Guggenheim and Barcelona, 1992, showed only the top of the iceberg.  Archives
do a good job under totalitarian governments (despite of these goverments in
itself).
On the other hand, who files? And what is he(r) purpose? I do not believe we
will never "loose the drive" to do it, though.
Best
Lucio BR




Citando Andrew Burrell <andrew@miscellanea.com>:

> Empyrians,
>
> Some thoughts on a few of the strands running through this
> conversation...
>
> I recently presented a paper on the ancient library of Alexandria at a
> humanities conference, and was surprised (though in hindsight I should
> not have  been) that question time revolved around discussion of the
> following quote, which discussed the destruction of the collections at
> Alexandria, Pergamon and the like:
>
>
> "The disasters of late antiquity had the general effect of rendering
> ancient literature a manageable corpus again. Had it survived, our own
> libraries would have long since burst- as they will do in the near
> future unless some similar catastrophe wipes out most of our extant
> holdings (or puts them on the internet!). Not only did the destruction
> of late antiquity reduce ancient literature to a manageable corpus, but
> it improved its overall quality as only canonised classics, in the
> main, survived." [J.O. Ward, "Alexandria and Its Medieval Legacy: The
> Book the Monk and the Rose," ]
>
>
> There was a certain amount of anger (or at the very  least least
> disgust) in the audience that one could suggest such a thing. It may,
> at first, appear to be unthinkable to speak of the destruction of such
> works as being somehow a good thing.  But then I realized that the
> horror that I feel in the possibility of celebrating this loss, is,
> more a symptom of my yearning for what I imagined might have been,
> rather than what was actually lost.
>
> What we plan to leave as a 'heritage' for the writers of history in the
> future, is not what will necessarily reach them. Especially if our own
> disasters render our own sprawling archives a 'manageable corpus.' They
> (those who write our history) will still mourn that which they imagine
> to have  been lost and will more than likely fill in the gaps with
> their own vision of our age.
>
> There is an answer to some of  this, however, and it revolves around
> the role of the  individual. I will allow another commentator on the
> ancient libraries to make this point for me:
>
>
> "The great concentrations of books, usually found in the centres, were
> the main victims of the destructive outbreaks, ruinous attacks,
> sackings and fires. The libraries of Byzantium proved to be no
> exception to the rule. In consequence, what has come down to us is
> derived not from the great centres but from the ?marginal? locations,
> such as convents, and scattered private copies." [Luciano Canfora, The
> Vanished Library]
>
>
> But, these comments also rely on assumptions I have made regarding the
> answers to the question
>
> "whom are we archiving for?"
>
> In the "now,"  however, if we as a culture, or as individuals ever lose
> the drive to collect, archive and store 'ourselves', it would be a sure
> sign that we had laid down and given up.
>
> And as a stab at an answer to Paul Koerbin's question:
>
> Who will be using our archives in 2525? People like us. People who are
> inquisitive, interested, concerned, flawed, curious, questioning and
> human. Technologies and outlooks may have changed since 1525, or even
> 525 BC, but I don't think these qualities of the people who use the
> technologies or possess these outlooks has changed. No matter what our
> future I don't see this changing in anything like 500 odd years. And
> while these are still attributes of being human, any talk of none of
> this really mattering in the context of the vastness of time and space
> outside of our individual lives, is defeatist and a evasion of
> responsibility to yourself.
>
>
> longtime lurker...
> andrew burrell
> http://www.miscellanea.com
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>



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