Day 2 Theme: Documentation Modes & Methods for Access & Study
Morning focus: Affordances and constraints of various modes of documentation
Reading #6: Abigail De Kosnik’s Rogue Archives
We pick back up on Day 2 with our discussion about documentation with Abigail De Kosnik’s Rogue Archives. The book argues that that it is not necessarily a system controlled by trained experts that preserves memory; instead, preservation requires individuals working independently or together to keep cultural memory alive. She cites four ways that “[M]emory has gone rogue”: 1) the who, non-trained practitioners undertaking it, 2) the how, methods have changed (e.g. remix), and 3) the when, temporality, and 4) the what, form.
Questions to Ponder:
- What methods are currently being used to document performance-based activities?
- Is there any overlap between print-based archive and digital-based repertoire methodology?
Reading #7: Robert Coover’s “End of Books”
This seminal essay (with its provocative title) does not claim that books will go away or that the print medium will disappear; rather he talks about hypertext narrative and its challenges as it was emerging in the early 1990s.
Questions to Ponder:
- Of the four challenges to hypertext narrative Coover identifies, have any been suitably addressed 25 years later?
- Where has narrative produced for and with digital technology gone since the publication of the essay?
- What has become of hypertext?
Day 5: Curatorial Practices for Presenting Documentation
Focus: Theory and practice of curating; final presentation of documentation project
Reading #8: Liz Wells’ “Curatorial Strategy as Critical Intervention”
We end the week’s readings by returning to curating. What interests us about Wells’ essay, which is aimed at media art and performance, is how it fits with DH practices. It is also useful in that challenges us to reflect on ways archives can be seen as the focus for exhibitions.
Questions to Ponder:
- Based on Wells’ definition of exhibition, can an archive be an exhibit?
- What research practices differ between the creation of an exhibition and an archive?
- What knowledge do we gain by thinking of exhibition and archive from both an art and humanities perspective?
Reading #9: Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Interview with Ingo Niermann, entitled “The Elephant Trunk in Dubai”
This essay hints to the process that led Obrist to reenvision the exhibition, an act that led to his reputation as a curator. It also raises questions about the role of literature and archives in exhibition.
Questions to Ponder:
- Have print- based practices relating to archiving, preserving, and exhibiting resulted in an acceptance of complacency that needs to be shaken?
- How much of the work we do with archiving focused on people and not the archive or the objects being archived? Does this matter?
- What role does transformation of the self play in archiving and preserving works?