User:Claxhanson/methods2

The SWARMS

ARCHIVE FEVER

There is no political power without control over the archive, if not over memory.

You can’t detach an archive from politics and the long history that formed it.

All contemporary phenomena must be understood contextually and historically, in relation to the power structures — or institutions — that shaped them, and are still shaping our understandings of ourselves, and of our times.

Is it possible to archive responsibly? What would that practice be? How do you sensibly collect, understand, and then *structure* memories?

Commencement & Commandement

"Let us not begin at the beginning, nor even at the archive. But rather at the word "archive" - and with the archive of so familiar a word."

ἀρχή - Arkhe : From the beginning, the origin. Sovereignity, dominion, authority.

- The origin of "archive" is complex, and its meaning has constantly been evolving since it first arose.

- The concept of the archive is itself hard to archive

Commencement... : An act or instance of commencing, beginning.

...Commandment : A command or mandate.

- Commencement/commandment, the chicken or the egg ?

- Was the archive already an archive before it was archived?

Arkeion: A domicile, an address. Residence of the superior magistrates, the archons, those who commmanded.

ἄρχων - Archon: Ruler [Greek, *arkhein* to rule] One of the 9 chief magistrates. of the city states.

- In the beginning, the word archive referred to Archons, who would file and store important documents in their own homes.

- According to Aristotle, the power of the king first devolved to the archons, and these offices were filled from the aristocracy by elections every ten years.

"On account of their publicly recognized authority, it is at their home, in that place which is their house (private house, family house, or employee's house), that official documents are filed."

- The Archons were entrusted by the general public to store important documents. - They were guardians of these documents.

What comes *first* and therefore is *chief* ?

Ontology...: Study of the nature of existence or being as such.

...Nomology: The science of law or laws.

• An archive holds both ontological aspects (related to the nature of existence) and nomological (law-like) principles.

• Archons were considered to possess — and therefore possess the right to make, and represent — the law.

" They do not only ensure the physical security of what is deposited and of the substrate. They are also accorded the hermeneutic right and competence. They have the power to interpret the archives. "

Hermeneutic: Method or theory of interpretation. Concerning interpretation.

• The functions of hermeneutics are: "the functions of unification, of identification, of classification."

• "Legitimate hermeneutic authority" :

The one who holds the archive (the data) is in the position (and has the authority) to interpret it.

Domiciliation : Establishment at a place of residence.

"It is thus, in this domiciliation, in this house arrest, that archives take place. The dwelling, this place where they dwell permanently, marks this institutional passage from the private to the public, …"

• The discourse produces the knowledge, the understanding of it.

• A concept doesn't exist until we say it does.

Edict: A decree or proclamation issued by an authority, and having the force of law.

• The passage from the domestic to the *public = property + the edicts*.

• Still a private matter even though made public — still stored in private places.

• Private > Public > Nonsecret?

PARASITES

Communication is crucial.

Language is never just there, never neutral, nor innocent. Words are actions. Having a multitude of perpectives on a subject will broaden your understanding of it: iterrupting can be a tactic, a tool to narrow down the panorama, and shape it to their interests.

Not being interrupted is a priviledge, a luxury. If you are constantly being interrupted, you will have have to deviate to be heard.

Propaganda and censorship are constantly trying to limit the fair distribution of communicating ressources. Authority controls resources, and will try to take down any content advocating for political dissidence or discordance. Who gets to articulates the laws? Who articulates the memory of it ? Don’t forget this.

How do you publish in times of such political urgency ? What do we have to protect ourselves about ? Who from ? For how long ? And what tools do we need to do it ?

CORPSE BRIDGE

Decay is the only reality, the only true state or condition.
Must we "accept" the inevitable decay?

When ideas decay, history is boud to repeat itself. 
 An idea must be embodied, to be externalized to be passed onto different levels and states. Does the decay of the body necessarily lead to the decay of the thought? How do you counter the loss — or censorship — of the materiality that constitutes a body. 

You can’t prevent a body from decaying, but you can engage in the perpetuation of its the intellect.
 Intellect can remain through other bodies. 
Intellect can be recorded, can be documented. 
How can a soul remain when it is substracted from its body?

In the light of their structural assets

Revolutions are built in collectivity.
What is it to be in the position of publishers in period of conflict ?
Assuming a collective position within the group, for the good of the group ?
Somehow manufacturing conditions of urgency in an evironement of relative safety can highlight a certain sense of respect for the labours of urgency that we are archiving.

The "Swarms" were the result of three intensive seesions, from each of which a fully wrapped up publication had to come out.

Using the slow reading method we have read several texts as a group. We have collected annotations, additional information and imagery on an Etherpad. Afterwards, we have collectively revised the collected content, added a glossary, styled it with CSS - designed a cover and designed the overall appearance of it. We have converted it to a print layout using the <a href="#ether2html">Ether2HTML</a> and <a href="#web2print">Web2Print</a> methods, and printed out this material as booklets, which we have named: SWARM 1, 2 & 3.

In the light of their structural assests, parts of these Swarms were sprinkled all around this website as bits of conversation and collective writing that have accompagnied us all along the process — a handfull of unreferenced snippets from a lot of different places. This work is an assemblage, it contains carbage from multiple writers and speakers — Carbage being bits of leftover cloth that tailors keep for future reuse.

Swarm 01 "We have a USB full of documents, is the outcome of the annotated reading of "Archive Fever" By Jacques Derrida.

Swarm 02 "Parasites", is the cross reading of 'A Communication Primer ›, by Ray & Charles Eames, and "Rat’s Meal/cascades, by Michel Serres"

Swarm 03 "Copora Viva" revolved around "The Corpse Bride: Thinking with Nigredo" by Reza Negarestani.