Recently one form of archive that I have been exploring is that of personal blogs and twitter pages of famous celebrities. while these pages could be considered as being unorthodox and trivial, I believe that they are actually quite revealing about the author and provides an intimate and unobstructed look into their most frank and honest thoughts.
As discussed before, an archive is meant to be an accumulation of as much, if not all, data that one can find regarding an issue, person or topic. Whether this is a broad and wandering collection or a specific and focused one merely depends on the archivist and their personal desire for their archive. One thing that they all have in common though is their ability to express what they want. It has been discussed whether or not this liberty is a good or a bad thing and whether or not it should be limited and checked.
This topic of discussion was what made the exploration of celebrity blogs so interesting. More often than not, the things that celebrities say and do are well known by all and are broadcast on many levels. this however, leads many celebrities to censor and guard what they say for fear of their words and actions being misinterpreted. This is what made the bogs and twitter pages I found so interesting. though not absolutely ridiculous and revealing of secret natures, the twitter pages and blogs of celebrities that I found and looked at let me feel as if their words were more genuine and human regardless of the content.
For this reason, even though it may be just to satisfy a guilty pleasure, I will continue following the blogs as i see the interviews and articles appear, for I'm sure that the differences and similarities to be found among them will be a very interesting comparison and entirely nique archive.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Hoarding and Archives
I just finished watching an episode of TLC's new show Hoarding: Buried Alive. It competes with A&E's Hoarders, another show focussed on the mental disorder of compulsive hoarding. Both shows focus on people who collect mass amounts of items and refuse to throw these things away. Their hoarding leads to unsanitary and dangerous situations, and in some cases, the hoarding threatens to tear families apart. In a way, these hoarders think much like famous archivists, collecting everything they see. However, with one person in a cluttered home, the organization is lost, and what is left is a sad and desperate scene. These people collect old newspaper and magazines, noting their historic value as a complete volume or other various "excuses." It is my belief, though, that if they let an archival artist into one of these home, he or she would leave with half of the things. Many of the items these people collect are products and collectibles that define our culture. From the box of baseball cards to the complete set of Hess Collectible Trucks, these items paint a picture of Americana that is rarely found in one location. Unfortunately, that location is usually a cooped up house with an angry family and piles of "American culture" blocking the door.
What drives these people, however, is what truly interests me, for this show made clear the fact that American advertisers want us to hoard. As a hoarder in the show stated (and I paraphrase), "I saw these dinner plates and I just pictured us using them at Thanksgiving." They ended up unused in a pile of her stuff, but that picture is what American companies want. They sell us the picture of an American Thanksgiving to sell dinner plates or the picture of the American life made easy with a new broom. These pictures they paint are the desired America, and in the attempt to paint that picture in our own lives, we archive American life.
So does hoarding have value? Well, if we call up artists before we raid these homes, then yes. Most the stuff is thrown away or sold, but what if it was organized in a museum? The regular American home does not possess the merchandise to represent a broad American image, but a hoarder's home has that capability. Don't get me wrong, I am not promoting this as it really is a sickness, but the best ideas come from turning problems into solutions, and I think this is a solution.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Foucault on the Archive, part deux
http://www.stuartgeiger.com/ossdebate/index.php?title=Foucault%27s_Masked_Philosopher
In what is the only online version of the text I could find, Michel Foucault anonymously argues for the development of an open archive – one that can be accessed by anybody – to further the development of human art and ideas.
As interesting as this interview is – some, including myself, view it as a key piece of Foucault’s philosophy and more specifically, criticism – the more interesting matter is that the curreny-day is Foucault’s world in the extreme. He talks of the death of new ideas, much as we have spoken of the death of English, the humanities, beauty, etc. at the hands of a populous who isn’t necessary unable to conjure up great art but rather no longer has the inspiration or the willpower to cast themselves against the greats of the past. Furthermore, if the medium of transfer of knowledge existed in the early 80’s in the form of Universities and libraries, then the post internet society of today would seem to solve Foucault’s problem. Not only are our sources more open, available, and easy to access (as it is much easier to lay on your bed and search for something on wikipedia than it is to go to the nearest library, obtain a membership, and subsequently heavily peruse the pages of Britanica until the necessary information is found), but the knowledge is now compiled. One is hard-pressed to find something in a book that now has not been catalogued somewhere electronically – granted sometimes these are in rather exclusive journals, but the opportunity does exist.
So where does the problem come from? We have the means, and, if Foucault is correct, the motive to initiate a great new Archive-inspired Renaissance (as if any renaissance wasn’t inspired by the archive, but perhaps another time), so what is the barrier?
Foucault misinterprets the importance of some of his own points. The “traditional discomfort between the ‘critics’ and those who write books” is a social phenomenon that has not ceased to exist with the development of new modes of storing knowledge and has perhaps been fostered by it. Now when an author, political figure, artist, etc. makes one slip-up, everybody has the opportunity to inform everybody else of their opinion on the mater via facebook, twitter, the blog, etc. Criticism no longer exists simply within the “intellectual” circles but on the drop-down consumer reports on Amazon and in the commentary of youtube videos. This “superficial” and “deep-seated anxiety,” put extremely simply, is stifling creative nature.
This puts the Archive at a rather tense place in terms of how it is situated in relation to art. On one hand, the ability to draw from past knowledge is crucial to creating new modes of thought and art, however, due to the inevitable judging that Foucault says takes place, the Archive becomes an unchanging set of rules, rather than the ever-transforming set of information that he makes it out to be in The Archeology of Knowledge.
Gerhard Richter, Photography, and The Archive
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh's article, "Gerhard Richter's Atlas: The Anomic Archive" (Page 85 of The Archives or online at the link below) raises some legitimate and thought-provoking questions concerning the use of photography and the archive. Buchloh, while discussing Richter's Atlas, thousands of photographs he collected and organized on squares, considered Richter's state as he compiled these photographs and the role of photography in general when dealing with archival work.
Richter, started forming Atlas shortly after fleeing Communism in East Germany, and Buchloh suggests that this may be the reason that much of the first few "blocks" of Atlas are landscapes and family pictures. He considers that Richter may have been trying to save his memories of the land he was leaving, of the people he was leaving behind. The question here, I suppose, is whether or not this compromises their legitimacy. Is an archive of value if it is more or less a man's scrapbook? If you say yes, then are all scrapbooks archives of artistic value?
If no, then is Benjamin a true artist? When speaking of the archives he said "I have nothing to say, only to show." I think this question would be answered with a resounding yes, but that leads us to the conclusion that the art is not in compiling a mass amount of information, but how it is presented. Benjamin's talent can be seen in his writing, but where do we see the artistic strengths of Richter. Yes, many of the pictures in Atlas became subjects for Richter's painting, but, it's hard to say there is not also talent in the creation of Atlas. Organization is where this talent can be seen. Twenty people could be given a pile of photographs, but it is which one's they choose and how they present them that separates true artists from just catalogers.
More on this article to come, but for now here is the link to the online copy of the article and a photograph that shows part of Atlas.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Andy Warhol and the Archive
A figure that has arisen in the discussions of a few groups up to now is Andy Warhol. For the purpose of this blog however, Warhol will be looked at from an archival perspective. More importantly, we will be looking at Warhol’s particular take on archives and information as well as how his particular perspective was reflected in his work.
“Everything in your closet should have an expiration date on it the way milk and bread and magazines and newspapers do, and once something passes its expiration date, you should throw it out.” In other words, Warhol was of the belief that things needed to exist within the then and now, and that everything had a limited lifespan to it. This particular perspective is similar to other forms of archives that we have looked at before where information can only be held up to a certain point. One such example is Freud’s belief in the “Mystic Writing Pad,” where once a page is filled up it is then wiped clean and started over. This particular archival perspective is particularly resonant of Warhol’s brand of art work as well.
Art is generally seen as the flavor and taste of a certain time period. Art that is popular during a certain time generally reflects everything that needs to be known about that time. It reflects the beliefs, ideals, traditions, customs, political, and social movements of that era.
During his lifetime, Warhol created works that were so out there and foreign to the art world of his time that his works produced a number of different responses ranging from positive to negative reviews and everything in between. Basically his art was explosive because it was new and unseen during the 1960’s. Furthermore, the content of Andy Warhol’s art pieces generally covered themes that were popular during the 1960’s and was reflective of the times. His coverage of coke bottles, popular figures such as Monroe and Elvis, and patriotism captured the 1960’s movements and managed to archive them in a personal way that was entirely unique.
-Donald
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