I would like to briefly talk about artist archive-thinking.
The archive, place of history, memories and time. The sheer materiality of the archive, the physicality of it whilst it is waiting to be ordered, when it becomes a sea of documents.
The archive localises and protects documents, but it also imprisons them. Locks them in a specific space, allowing the process of archiving and then finding or viewing it a somewhat emotional experience.
This experience is more often than not a linear movement, a walk down an aisle of a library, or a bookshop. It becomes physical, emotional and ordered.
What is the emotional impact of the archive?
Do we appreciate this impact and does it become more present when it is an individual more personal experience? For example, when we enter a city’s archives -generally in a large vault, or hidden room -where you have to be escorted and the keepers of this archive wheel out the documents on rather magnificent sized tables. Does archiving become more about the experience than the document? You feel you are the voyager on a strange and important meeting, a moment in time that perhaps you were not supposed to be a part of.
Yet, here you are. Witnessing this; this spectacle before you, this memory.
Should we keep these moments hidden away, archived, like the dead sea; waiting for the person to come and make use of them, uncover their lost pages and store them in their memories before having to come back again to re-read what has been forgotten. Or, should we erase all physicality.
Should an individual book be for the individual. Or for the collective human race.
Sometimes, we become trapped by the history of these archives, by their past their meaning their hidden secrets. Are they supposed to be revealed? Are we supposed to store them or live them?
Should we have the ‘library of life’ available to all – or is it already available, metaphysically, in our subconsious.
“Documents become available at a certain time” as Walter Benjamin stated.
Thanks to Picture this and Ruadhri Ryan for introducing me to the book ‘Ghosting: The role of the Archive within Contemporary Artists’ Film and Video’ – Inspiring me to think more and write about the archive.
