TP essay 1 - Lucas

'General', the librarian said, 'if you want to know how I know about every book here, I can tell you. Because I never read any of them.'

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, Part 2, ch. 100.

One of the themes touched upon in the text relates to the impulse not only to archive different media artifacts, but also to transfer such diversity into the realm of computer data processing. "There's a whole world waiting to be scanned."

I am interested in the underlying factors that provoke such impulse to absorb everything - including the artefacts of what Adilkno categorizes as 'old media' - into the cyberspace.

The archival impulse is in this instance accompanied with a "recording frenzy." As Adilkino suggests, the cybernetic mediaspace has become the arena of choice for the construction of a comprehensive archive, even when such enterprise is acknowledged as futile.

This recording frenzy usually takes for granted the superiority of digital data systems over old media archives. In this context Kenneth Goldsmith, founder of the Ubuweb archive, mentions the innate instability of the cyberspace and digital media in general.:

"If you find something on the internet that you love, don't assume that it's going to be there forever. Dowload it. Always make your own archive. Don't ever assume that it's waiting there for you, because it won't be there when you look for it."

A related issue that interests me is the differentiation, both theoretical and practical, of data and information. In what instance does data become information? What is the role of archives within this differentiation?

One approach to this question is that of the Czech philosopher Vilem Flusser. For Flusser information, in contrast with data, is qualitative rather than quantitative. He introduces the notions of redundant and nonredundant information, which challenges the idea that information in general can be measured in abstract quantities, and thus be dissociated from its cultural space.

While discussing the category of topical media, Adilkino enumerates several processes involved in the archiving of media: "collection, attraction, gathering, tapping, clipping, copying, categorizing, storing, restructuring and, above all, saving data." It can be suggested that through these processes, the archivist generates information out of the manipulation of data.

The process of establishing and mantaining a media archive is not only a process of compilation, but also a generative process. Traditional stages commonly associated with archiving are now concomitant with each other, and often become hard to differentiate. "Generation, manipulation and recording are no longer sequential stages in data handling, but always take place simultaneously."