User:Petra Milicki/Notes

Michel Foucault says that memories and archives do not survive by chance but are constructed to serve structures of power.

Where this come from, what is the pre-digital, pre-networked model?

How do we preserve collective memories?

• Physically - objects (books, libraries, museums, archives)
• Digitally - digitalized texts, books; images of objects, places
• Mentally - monuments

Monument [1]

A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture.

Monument (dictionary)

1. Something which stands, or remains, to keep in remembrance what is past; a memorial.
2. A building, pillar, stone, or the like, erected to preserve the remembrance of a person, event, action,
3. A stone or other permanent object, serving to indicate a limit or to mark a boundary.
4. A saying, deed, or example, worthy of record.

Politics of memory

The politics of memory is the political means by which events are remembered and recorded, or discarded. The terminology addresses the role of politics in shaping collective memory and how remembrances can differ markedly from the objective truth of the events as they happened. The influence of politics on memory is seen in the way history is written and passed on.

Memories are influenced by political and cultural forces. Government policies and social rules, as well as popular culture and social norms, influence the way events are remembered.

Monument Group [2]

"… In this space we aim to produce a monument that will neither follow the ossifying politics of monuments, nor the prevailing models of reconciliation. The monument in question is in the process of becoming — it consists of a collective in which each entity defines its own political position."

It could be argued that whether the archive is composed of print, photographs, film and/or digital media, the technologies used to organise, search and share documents have taken over the purview of a state, with the crowd acting as the control mechanism. Digital archives have changed from a stable entity into flexible systems, referred to with the popular term ‘Living Archives’. But in which ways do these changes affect our relationship to the past, present and future? What are the implications for this mode of forgetting, for memories, as well as for what is suppressed? Will the erased, forgotten and neglected be redeemed, and new social memories be allowed? Will the fictional versus factual mode of archiving offer the democracy that the public domain implies, or is it another way for public instruments of power to operate?

Digital Monument

• public space - cyber space
• is it possible to "build" a digital monument?
• what are the characteristics that it could adopt/translate/convert and what would be the characteristics that this "free" medium could allow us?
• can we avoid the political
• is it possible to build a digital monument that would be participative object and also distributive
• on what subject?
• can a monument "built" online be embodied in physical public space?