Tag Archives: technology

The Archive

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I never viewed books under the framework presented; books as a quantitative and qualitative objective measures–books for me, for the most part, are a vessel of knowledge and entertainment; I have never viewed books as an archive– specifically how archival records interject with different modes of medium– physically and digitally. In this instance the archive is defined or categorized as “a place in which public records or other important historic documents are kept. Whether in a library museum or an online database”. This allows to not look at records but understand the perplexities of the history and the science behind the book– not merely at the content of the book but as an artifact, as a medium. Echoing Derrida’s scholar take on the archive. Derrida deconstructs the archive, the notion of archiving and scrutinizing a meditation on time and technology– both factors interjecting on how the archive has transmogrified. The archive are not merely process of keeping documents boxed up but demonstrate a relationship between the different modes of inscription and the technological advancements of the time period the records were written. Such processes, laudable yet problematic. As mentioned earlier, qualitative measures analyze books for its content and meaning, exhibiting the relationship between time and values; on the other hand, the quantitative measure seeks to find patterns across literary records– both metrics seek to accomplish to understand the archive. Furthermore, this archive duality demonstrates how digitalization shapes and reconstructs our perception regarding the permeance of objects. It guides our thinking through an “extended meditation… on time and technology”. Just as the archive shift from paper to screen, its contents become widely accessible yet unstable– bouncing between the different modes of medium online. The traditional standard of the archive carries from within its original content matter– annotations, missing pages, highlights; the online archive loses those privileges, yet privileges accessibility and equity– facilitating the process for those who seek it. The archive operates in a spectrum, constantly being redefined as our understanding changes.

Archive Fever

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I was under the impression (wrongfully) that electronic literature was simply e-books or PDFs stored in a digital device; I never made the connection between literature and the capabilities of the electronic device—for example, digital media have hyperlinks and other modes of interaction, creating a new manner in which literature is reproduced through different modes of media. One example that caught my attention was that electronic literature branched out into several forms such as “chatterbots, interactive fiction, novels that take the form of e-mails, SMS messages, or blogs.” There are many forms and genres in which electronic literature is being reproduced—and, as technology evolves, so do these modes and media. I always thought about the relationship we have with literature as a feedback loop—author, word, and text to reader. E-lit challenges and blurs this paradigm by immersing the reader in a different experience, one that cannot be offered by traditional books. By no means am I making a clear distinction that one is superior to the other, but rather highlighting the idea that they both offer a different user experience. In a similar manner, in a previous post I discussed how language is not static or fixed, as it is always changing and adapting, echoing the framework in which e-lit operates—digital media has branched out through all the user participatory interactions, which demonstrate the instability or nonlinearity of this media. Intrinsically, this also demonstrates the ephemerality of electronic media; just as books can be considered outdated as we have culturally shifted to e-book’s and PDF’s, electronic literature can be archived if the software/ web cease to support that particular format– our current tumultuous political climate also influences. The government has erased several online pages that preserved publicly known information, censoring and making works disappear completely– demonstrating the fragility of this mode of media and echoing that we are in a constant state of change. The relationship between media, text and readers have changed and evolved– from time to technology.