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A collection of records in time. More specifically: of documents containing data.
Strict definitions of the term point us to the fact that archives are about undead data: data that have been of importance for administrative (or other) purposes once, but now are out-dated, yet considered as important to keep for records and further use(s). And thus collected, maintained, kept and preserved in the archive.
Obviously, all archives are based on a process of decisions necessarily implying filter functions, omissions and blind spots – however professional and reflected these decisions may have been.
From that background, we may think of each archive has an invisible sister-archive, a dark mirror or archive: consisting of all data that have been excluded, omitted, or lost.
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What if the archive remains empty?
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In many, if not all cases the archive will be more comprehensive than the related archive. We might consider this archive as (in)visible, of unknown and probably ever changing dimensions. And we may think of ways to enter.
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keywords: absence, archives, cultural history, documentation, loss, presence, records, time |
