Tag Archives: Future

OHD_MDM_0032 Beasties of the Archive

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I did a mind map/a brain dump around all the supernatural bullshit that bounces around in my head and I finally used a post-it note that some how has survived since February.

The Ghost

The idea of archives being haunted I have talked about a lot. I do find it a rather beautiful and romantic idea but some people do not believe in ghosts or went to art school so they have a lower tolerance for bullshit. Let’s leave the bullshit argue for now and just enjoy the idea of ghosts of Seaton Delaval Hall floating around the archive telling their stories. The root the stories within a human and therefore more relatable setting. The story has a face and a personality so there is more room for the reuser to create a bond with the person.

However, ghosts are by their mythology rather static beings. Ghosts exist because they have unfinished business in this world. They live a rather selfish existence which is not too ideal for the space that I want to create where ghost and human collaborate together.

The Undead

Unlike the ghost the undead are able to stay in this world forever, adapting with society, taking on new trends etc. They are also human like but unlike ghost they have less of an agenda so are more likely to be open to ideas.

However humans do not generally like things that live forever, mostly because we are very jealous, so the undead are often painted as pretty gross. For example, rotting zombies or blood thirsty vampire, generally both are not very cool when it comes to fitting in with society.

The Robot

Here is another potentially immortal being, the robot! However this one might potentially die faster than all of us due to rampant capitalism, built in obsolescence and many many updates. But if it does survive it has a bigger brain than all of the beasties. However, it does not have a heart and unlike the above beasties this one is less of a metaphor and more of a physical system many of which already exists. My only addition is that we give this robot a name, which is not a particular new idea just ask Alexa. By the way here is probably the biggest problem – I do not really like Alexa, I think she is creepy.

The Garden

From fauna to flora here comes the archive as a garden. Originally this post-it was created because I was thinking about how I have memories attached to plants but it has now morphed into this… Archives can be viewed as an eco system just like a garden. The plants are the documents that live within the garden: some die, some live, some completely take over and some change with the seasons. The insects are the users of the archive: some users are bees they take and add to the archive, some are snails and just take take take, and some are flies who deal with the messy that is created. The whole thing becomes an eco system that needs everyone to help in order for it to keep existing. Take one thing out and it all falls apart.

Now I perfectly aware that I cannot use all these metaphors at once because then they do not work, but it is interesting to think about which metaphor can best encourage the mindset that I wish for the users of the archive to have. That mindset being one of care for those who donated parts of their lives to this public space. Are people more likely to care for ghosts, zombies, robots or plants? Or maybe I need to create my own supernatural archival being?

HERE LIES A POTENTIAL EXPERIMENT

OHD_BLG_0067 Sites of Conscience

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by Liv Ševčenko

“Heritage can never be outside politics – it is always embedded in changing power relations between people.“

“integrating dialogue into every stage of heritage management, from planning to preservation to interpretation, and allowing for continual evolution.”

Museums are great at showing history, but they always do this through the lens of the present. And the present has this annoying habit of constantly changing, this means that the lens used to initially set up the exhibition is probably out of date by now.

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience fights this problem by setting up heritage sites as places for open dialogue about contemporary problems. They do this by obviously working with the community but also continuously mining their history for perspectives on problems. It’s continuous baby! And exactly what I want to do!

Also super fun idea of incorporating discussions on how to set up an exhibition into the exhibition.

Above you see my brainstorm around what dialogues we could possibly do a SDH, bu I think that other people are way more suited to think about this. However it will be a good exercise to do with people.

OHD_BLG_0076 ʇǝɹɔǝs ʞɹɐp ǝɥʇ

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In Frisch’s ‘Three dimensions and more’ he discusses the idea of the deep dark secret of oral history being like the unopened shoe box of homemade videos – unwatched. After digesting this idea for the last two years I suddenly realised something. Oral history as a field exists because of technological advancements. The field is completely intertwine with technology: the recording devices used to make the first recordings, the internet now allowing for international zoom interviews, it all depends on technology. This made me think that maybe the deep dark secret is not an oral history problem but in fact a technology problem. It’s not oral history’s fault that much of technology is not particularly focused on sustainable storage. There is focus on speedy communication; phones, text messages, social media and trading; online shopping and targeted advertising. Even accessing knowledge (aka googling) is not based on accuracy but more speed and attention.

Digital storage is a minefield from ‘things that exist on the internet forever’ to link rot and from the now unreadable mini-disc to hard drives that can store two terabytes of data. It is so extreme that it is clear that no has really thought about beyond uploading it. Technology, like many things in capitalist society live solely in the present, so the way it views time extremely 2-dimensional. There is no thought about how this attitude towards storage affects the past or the future. The amount of time and money that is required to keep archives up to date with their digitisation is not covered by the amount of money and time archives actually have. Beyond the archive our day to day interaction and documentation has an unknown future. What are your next of kin going to do with your Facebook page when you die? Or your instagram? Your Snapchat? Your emails? Your iCloud? Your laptop, smart phone, hard drivers and tablets? Currently it is likely that it will either disappear or be inaccessible.

The way we store our data in this blasé way has the potential to create a black hole of information in the timeline of human history. This attitude is completely inefficient when it comes to accessing and reusing. Unless of course you are Facebook, Google or Apple. These mega gods of information are able to mine astronomical amounts of data and use it. But in order to use it they strip every single bit of humanity from the process. The only way to use the truly insane amounts of data is by reducing the human producer so much that literally become zeros and ones. No feelings, no aura, just nothing. Oral history cannot do this because oral history is fundamentally human. Just like home videos that are filled with nostalgia and memory, they take time to watch or listen to because there is so much emotion and memory that needs to be digested while viewing. But the data that is used by big tech is void of this emotion.

In conclusion, due to oral history’s long term yet slightly abusive relationship with technology it has got this deep dark secret of unused archives. But in truth technology does not support what archives are trying to do. The creators of this technology just do not give a shit because that’s the nature of the capitalistic beast. I suggest therefore that we take a reverse attitude towards this relationship. Oral history needs to inform tech what they need in order to make archives work better because clearly tech has no idea what it is doing.