Our study delves into diverse anarchival tendencies by focusing on two case-studies that address the audiovisual heritage: Jan Bot: bringing film heritage to the algorithmic age, and Oráculo de Capturas de Pantalla. In both, we underline the strategies by which other possibilities are opened up for memory and history.
ISEA 2022. Possibles.
Venue: CCCB
Long Papers Session: Algorithms, machine learning and audiovisual heritage.
... the artistic anarchive has a poetic, critical and performative character. It enables both desired and unpredictable openings. The very idea of anarchive implies to continue collecting and discovering with passion, deconstructing and reinventing, presenting and presentificating in a thousand ways, with the freedom of not knowing where all of this will lead us to.
Abstract:
Throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, many artists have addressed the archive by questioning its function, classification systems, legitimacy, registration technologies or inclusion/exclusion protocols. Considering that within digital culture, AI has become a key factor for information management, this article explores how the use of these technologies in art is offering new perspectives to think about the archive, heritage and memory. Within the meshwork of existing practices and approaches that operate creatively challenging traditional hierarchies and protocols of the archive, we will pull from two strings: 1) on the one hand, the group of appropriationist-type tactics that operate by activating new interpretations of already constituted archives; 2) on the other, those that propose the creation of new archives, generally dealing with scattered elements that were previously ignored or discarded. We will delve into these two anarchival strategies by focusing on two case studies that address critically the filmic and audiovisual heritage: Jan Bot: bringing film heritage to the algorithmic age and the Oráculo de Capturas de Pantalla (OCP). In both cases we will study the strategies by which other possibilities are opened up for history, and the place given to algorithms in their construction.
Tags: Anarchivism; Generative Art; Performativity; Collective Memory; Audiovisual Heritage
Authors: Vanina Hofman; Valentina Montero