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

[<valerie.leblanc@acadnet.ca>]

Hello Lucio:  
I always felt that the condition of the  Russian
Avant-Garde before the end of 80's derived for the most
part from repression and a lack of exposure to the
contemporary and ongoing changes in the artworld at large.

- Valerie (LeBlanc)



On 
 Lucio Agra <agra21@click21.com.br> wrote:
> 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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