Archives. What are they? Basically, something that records any and all happenings. Archives I come in contact with are, for instance, my collections of books, music, and movies. My movies are also divided into video cassette, DVD, and digital libraries – archives within my archives – archive-ception (in reference to the movie Inception, if you haven’t watched it, you must watch it now)! Through this week I’ve come to develop a further sense of archives and their impact on society. Publishing is fundamentally archives written by, for, and about publics. Following Parikka (2013), we are becoming an “information management society”. However, are archives helping preserve or rather distort our world? From what I gather, archives help us further understand concepts, yet at the same time, these concepts we are understanding may not necessarily be completely correct. Still, it does not stop us from exponentially creating archives – something called ‘archive fever’.
Archive fever. What is it? It is a theory and also a practice. Howard (2007) indicates it as a kind of desire, one that attempts to recover moments of initiations – and to locate and retain a variety of beginnings. Basically it’s the notion of constantly making more and more and more and more and more archives (just typing that makes me feel like I should be breaking out into a sweat). Humans have evolved from nmeme and anmesis (natural archiving – or memory), to an increasing dependence on hypomnesis (unnatural archiving, for example books). Stiegler (2003) states that there is a crisis in the modern “ecology of mind”, as mnemotechnics (that is, media) flourishes, spreads and interferes with what we once easily defined as ‘natural’, our ‘culture’, and even our ‘selves’. Sit back and think for a minute, who are you? With everything on your phone, your music, your videos – so many archives to deal with, is that you? I’m confused too. Does who we are as an interpretation from our archives define who we truly are? Derrida (1996) articulates that archives are both destructive and conservative, in other words, it destroys what it is trying to conserve. Subjects cease to be the events they were, and instead become part of a new order formed by the varying perspectives in varying archives.
Interpretations of Derrida’s Archive Fever spread across platforms and perceptions – namely books, web articles, and even a movie (Derrida, 2002). Archivists archiving archives about an archive about archives (Inception overdose anyone?). Enszer (2008) interprets from Derrida that archives appear to have authority, with the nature of an archive being both authoritatively transparent and concealed. Archives are finding enhanced power in that it essentially defines not only our past, but also our future – what we record becomes who we are, and who we will be. Imagine, for instance, me. My archives say I am a University Undergraduate, one-dimensionally, that is who I am. However, the day I complete and obtain my Degree, I am, to the world, a University Graduate, and will be so in the future. But is this all I am? The information all around us that we are constantly archiving becomes increasingly confusing and disorganized as it expands exponentially. With the rise of archives, so have come the need for infotention. However, even something derived from the need to organise can become messy. #too #many #hashtags
References:
Anon. (n.d.) ‘Derrida: Text Citations’, The Derrida the Movie web site, date accessed 10/04/2013 <http://www.derridathemovie.com/readings.html>
Derrida, J. (1996) Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression Chicago:University of Chicago Press
Enszer, J. R. (2008) Julie R. Enszer (personal blog), ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression by Jacques Derrida’, November 16, date accessed 09/04/2013 <http://julierenszer.blogspot.com/2008/11/archive-fever-freudian-impression-by.html>
Howard, S. (2007) ‘Reposted: Archive fever (a dusty digression)’, Early Modern Notes, September 25, date accessed 09/04/2013 <http://emn.sharonhoward.org/2007/09/reposted-archive-fever-a-dusty-digression/>
Parikka, J. (2013) ‘Archival Media Theory: An Introduction to Wolfgang Ernst’s Media Archaeology’ in Ernst, Wolfgang Digital Memory and the Archive Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 1-22
Stiegler, B. (2003) ‘Our Ailing Educational Institutions’, Culture Machine, date accessed 09/04/2013 <http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewArticle/258/243>
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