Autonomous Archiving

By Miriam & Mira

• Archiving in digital video production surpasses the literal term of collecting videos to build memory, towards creating a stream of connecting events, revealing incidents and building a narrative, especially in terms of political disobedience.
• “Haunting Image” is a term used to describe the power of images in providing a summarized political scheme, whether this image includes the whole truth or aims at serving political agendas. An example on haunting images is Eyal Weizman’s images of evicted villages in Palestine.
• “Archival Fever” refers to the discussion on expanding the role of archives to include building a collective memory for political disobedience.
• “10 Theses on the Archive” is a set of advice provided by Shaina Anand on how to prepare and collect archived material through an autonomous method. The method focuses on action in order to provide data for archives, which must be guided to achieve a collective memory for political disobedience.
• “The Direction of Archiving” refers to the philosophy that pushes towards publicizing archives and building on their connections to achieve political goals, instead of working on archives discretely to look for “specific” pieces exclusively.
• “Propriety” in terms of archives refers not to the rules on how archives are collected and prepared for the public, but rather to the ethical responsibility of the archivists, which hints to the concept of “autonomy” in archiving.
• “Autonomy” in archiving refers to the power held by archivists to mold images and data into visual stories that will help shape the memory of the public regarding certain issues. This act is autonomous since the work of archivists is hugely dependent on their sense of responsibility and care.
• The article tackles the subject of autonomous archiving from its need to its complications. This topic lies at the heart of media activism since archives play a central role in defining the timeline of events which helps shape public opinion on certain matters. Archives fall into the category of media due to the nature of images and videos, and their link to activism is found in the power of images in influencing popular opinion.

Reference

Tan, P., Çelikaslan, Ö., & Sen, A. (Eds.). (2016). Autonomous Archiving. dpr-barcelona.