Autonomous Archiving

Mira Marini & Miriam Hamade

• 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. Examples of archiving in digital video production include the documentaries on revolutions such as the documentary “Al-Tahrir Square” which presents an archiving of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011.
• “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. Haunting images present the obvious form of the role played by digital archiving, since images offer a static reality that is attached to viewer’s minds. For instance, Weizman’s images serve as tens of articles written about the eviction that occurred in Palestine.
• “Archival Fever” refers to the discussion on expanding the role of archives to include building a collective memory for political disobedience. This phenomenon is expanding nowadays in the era of social media where groups compete to archive their perception of events. A good example on this fever is the continuous video production archiving the events of the Lebanese 17thof October Revolution.
• “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 tools for active archiving include autonomy and propriety, which refer to the huge power offered to the archivists in terms of dealing with the material in hand. This places more responsibility on archivists to transform videos and images into stories that will help shape public opinion on past and present events.
• “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. A great example may be Princess Diana’s secret interviews that provided material for the biography written about her. These interviews are directed towards presenting Diana’s version of events regarding the controversy about her life and marriage.
• 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.