Post-Digital Archives (2017)
Let's say the digital revolution is over.
The enthusiasm that ushered in this revolution
has since become counter-balanced, if not submerged,
by skepticism and disenchantment.
And what we are faced with are ubiquitous surveillance,
impoverishment of aesthetic experiences and trivialization
of social life, the results of an - at once deep and shallow - immersion in the digital and network media.
The way we access, record and archive our presence in the world has also been affected. In this post-digital
situation, we all engage in some forms of archiving, whether we want to - or not.
When interacting with our devices, we archive and are being archived,
held captive by a densely woven net of technologies. How can this condition be approached creatively?
Post-Digital Archives was an exhibition that took place between 11th and 20th September 2017 at Inter Arts Center in Malmö.
The intention was to create a zone for the exploration of hybrid modes of personal archiving. In a loose and impromptu manner,
the event presented on-going work of several practitioners who, in a poetic, humble, renegade, creative and subversive way
combine digital and non-digital techniques to record, erase, archive, unarchive, remediate or demediate selected facets of
everyday life in the present moment. One of the outcomes that the event gave rise to was a series of post-digital publications
combining analog and digital components and focusing on practices concerned with idiosyncratic forms of documentation and
archiving of everyday life and public space. More on para-archives.net
Participants: Jacek Smolicki (curating), Olle Essvik, Malin Pettersson Öberg, Nikita Mazurov, Jenny Soep, Ronda Bautista, Lucy N.
The exhibition was followed by
'Notes on Post-Digital Archives', an essay published as part of 'Representations and Reconfigurations of the Digital
in Swedish Literature and Art, 1950-2010',
Linköping University, and presented at the international conference there in November 2017.
Olle Essvik, For Objects to Come & For Years to Come
Olle Essvik, For Objects to Come & For Years to Come
Jacek Smolicki, Acquainting / On-Going Project
Jacek Smolicki, Acquainting / On-Going Project
Malin Pettersson Öberg, Everyday Archives
Nikita Mazurov, Exothermic Data Liberation
Nikita Mazurov, Exothermic Data Liberation
Ronda Bautista, Have a Nice Parking
Ronda Bautista, Have a Nice Parking
Jenny Soep, Sound Drawing
Jenny Soep, Sound Drawing
Jacek Smolicki, Fragmentarium
Jacek Smolicki, Fragmentarium