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.