An Archaeology of Digital Knowledge Imaginaries of the Digital Cultural Heritage Archive Andreasen, Torsten Arni Caleb
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An archaeology of digital knowledge Imaginaries of the digital cultural heritage archive Andreasen, Torsten Arni Caleb Publication date: 2016 Document license: CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Andreasen, T. A. C. (2016). An archaeology of digital knowledge: Imaginaries of the digital cultural heritage archive. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. Download date: 08. Apr. 2020 An archaeology of digital knowledge - Imaginaries of the digital cultural heritage archive “[…] il nous faut apprendre à détecter, pour y résister de nouvelles formes de prise de pouvoir culturel.” Derrida: L’autre cap, p. 55 By Torsten Arni Caleb Andreasen - Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen - Royal School of Library and Information Science, University of Copenhagen - Danish Broadcasting Corporation Academic supervisor: Frederik Tygstrup 1 For Bente – The initiating condition of possibility for this and whatever may follow. 2 Table of Contents Anacrusis ..................................................................................................................... 5 1. A kingdom of relations ............................................................................................. 9 1.1 Opening the archive ........................................................................................... 9 1.1.1 The notion of the archive .............................................................................. 9 1.1.2 Archive, library, canon ................................................................................ 13 1.1.3 Archival interpretation, spectrality and heritage .......................................... 16 1.1.4 The ghosts of their lusts and lives .............................................................. 19 1.2 Depicting the archive ........................................................................................ 22 1.2.1 Depiction as object of analysis ................................................................... 22 1.2.2 From plethora to pleroma ........................................................................... 24 1.2.3 A plethora of ambiguities ............................................................................ 30 1.2.4 The barrier .................................................................................................. 37 1.3 Automating the archive ..................................................................................... 42 1.3.1 Digitalised libraries ..................................................................................... 42 1.3.2 Digitised libraries ........................................................................................ 48 1.3.3 Amazon ...................................................................................................... 53 1.3.4 Netflix .......................................................................................................... 55 1.4 Tracing the archive ........................................................................................... 59 1.4.1 Identifying with the archive ......................................................................... 59 1.4.2 Hypomnemata and correspondence .......................................................... 60 1.4.3 Ethopoiesis and doxopoiesis ...................................................................... 63 1.4.4 A diagram of relations ................................................................................. 66 2. An object of formations .......................................................................................... 71 2.1 Technological development .............................................................................. 75 2.1.1 1945: Birth of the computer ........................................................................ 75 2.1.2 The World brain & the Memory Extender ................................................... 78 2.1.3 Networked libraries ..................................................................................... 83 2.1.4 From networks to storage ........................................................................... 88 2.1.5 Infinite storage ............................................................................................ 92 2.2 Cultural politics ................................................................................................. 94 2.2.1 World brain, World city, World Museum ..................................................... 94 2.2.2 The presence of the past .......................................................................... 102 2.2.3 Building blocks of the future ..................................................................... 108 2.2.4 Three strategic axes of digital cultural heritage ........................................ 112 3 3. A three-fold Thing ................................................................................................ 122 3.1 Digital humanities and the elusive thing ......................................................... 123 3.2 Closing in on the thing .................................................................................... 126 3.3 Access ............................................................................................................ 129 3.4 Bits and archives ............................................................................................ 131 3.5 Code ............................................................................................................... 134 3.6 Evidence ......................................................................................................... 136 3.7 Discipline ........................................................................................................ 140 3.8 Control ............................................................................................................ 142 3.9 In closing on the thing ..................................................................................... 146 4. Scholion: larm.fm ................................................................................................. 148 4.1 The medium as massage ............................................................................... 150 4.2 Encryption of reality ........................................................................................ 153 4.3 Principles of new media .................................................................................. 155 4.4 Cultural heritage as resource ......................................................................... 159 4.5 Institutional survival ........................................................................................ 162 4.6 Societal control ............................................................................................... 164 5. A community of Memory ...................................................................................... 170 5.1 Archival pleroma ............................................................................................. 174 5.2 Political pleroma ............................................................................................. 181 5.3 The construction of contemporaneity as kenoma ........................................... 186 5.4 Existential time or standing reserve ................................................................ 189 5.5 Empirical time or imaginative disavowal ......................................................... 191 5.6 Geopolitical time and the task of the archive .................................................. 193 5.7 Grid vs. Vortex ................................................................................................ 196 5.8 Album vs. Atlas ............................................................................................... 200 5.9 Profanation ..................................................................................................... 203 5.10 A coming community of memory .................................................................. 210 Coda – A tale of two biennials ................................................................................. 216 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 226 Websites ............................................................................................................... 246 Films ..................................................................................................................... 247 Abstract ................................................................................................................... 248 Resumé (in Danish) ................................................................................................. 249 4 Anacrusis Not unlike any other dissertation ever written, this one was supposed to be about something else. My Ph.D. position was made available by the LARM project, a research project spanning 10 research and cultural institutions, the goal of which was to develop a digital research infrastructure for Danish radio. The topic called for was user contribution to digital cultural heritage archives and the candidate was asked to deliver an evaluation of “best practice” accompanied by an analysis from the perspective of philosophy of technology. As will no doubt become clear, user contribution plays an exceedingly small part in what follows. And as will also become apparent, any recommendation for best practice has been reduced to