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Hyrbrid Realities Lab Audio Recording Week 5 Session 8
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The speaker discusses the idea of archiving within virtual and digital spaces, using examples such as the closure of Club Penguin and filmmaker Chris Marquer's Second Life world. They highlight the challenges of preserving virtual spaces and the need for documentation. They also mention the vulnerability of platforms and the importance of creating accessible platforms for showcasing digital art. The discussion touches on experiences with archiving and the potential loss of work due to platform closures. The speaker emphasizes the need for considering the physicality of virtual spaces and the trend of hoarding and collecting data. The conversation prompts thoughts on media materiality and the return to physical formats for preserving work. That's scary. That's changed, I think. Thank you. Will we jump in? Jump in? Dive in. Yeah, go for it. Let's get started. How is everyone doing today? Cool. Yeah. I want to start by playing something that I think is going to be a little bit of a challenge. It might make sense as you watch it, but it will definitely make sense after you watch it all, like why I'm playing it. So I'm going to share my screen. And just give a thumbs up if everyone can see, and we're going to watch this. And also, this comment was kind of interesting. So did anyone here ever play Club Penguin as a child? Okay. I was pretty big into it when I was a kid. It was one of the first sort of like virtual spaces that I spent a lot of time in. So this video is the final moments, right, because in 2017, it went away. I don't know if it's like back in any form, but it went away. The whole platform shut down, so you couldn't access it anymore, which is something that happens to like a lot of these kind of virtual game spaces, and there's like a whole sort of subgenre on YouTube of like the last minutes of XYZ platform. So it relates to what we're going to talk about today, because it was the last moments of this virtual platform, right? After that, like everything people had built up was gone. You couldn't access it anymore, and it became something you could only access through certain archives like YouTube videos. So the kind of broad topic of today is the idea of archiving within virtual and digital spaces and how, you know, like sort of best practices for archiving our work, but also a sort of conversation about the sort of like precarious place that these platforms live in, right? Because, you know, if Club Penguin was your life in 2017, you know, on whatever date it was at 12 o'clock, you couldn't play anymore. So what is, you know, where does that leave us? And also sort of, you know, brings up questions of sustainability of different platforms like New York City. So yeah, let's dive in. I'm going to show you a more academic example or a more actual sort of art example. Does everyone here know the filmmaker Chris Marquer? He did a Saint-Soleil, among other things, French filmmaker. But he was – let me see if I can – cool. All right. Sweet. He got really into Second Life towards the end of his career, towards the end of his life. We've talked about Second Life, I think, a few times already, but, you know, massive online virtual worlds where people could kind of like create their own worlds and create their own spaces. So Chris Marquer actually quite famously created a space within Second Life that actually still exists to this day. I wanted to bring you into the actual space on Second Life, but Second Life's software is really shit and it was like ruining my computer, so I just decided this is better. So in 2009, there was this sort of, at this point, somewhat historic event that took place with the Harvard Film Archive. I'm actually going to show you Second Life of Chris Marquer. So the Harvard Film Archive brought – I'm not going to play any volume on this, but I'll just kind of play it. Chris Marquer and the Harvard Film Archive went into Second Life and broadcast his world. He gave a tour, which was like a pretty rare occasion of this space in Second Life. And even though the space sort of exists still, like I mentioned earlier, it's kind of hard to access, like the software for Second Life is just kind of outdated and, you know, it's just sort of janky, for lack of a better word. But many people kind of know about Chris Marquer's Second Life world through this documentation, which I think is super interesting and it's become like the Criterion channel or the Criterion collection has done like a write-up on this. I think they even have archives of this video within their collection. So it becomes this thing of like this virtual world, you know, is an art piece in and of itself, but then the archived sort of version of it becomes almost more popular than the actual virtual space itself. So this is obviously something that, you know, we all need to be thinking about with like making New Art City spaces, but also just like making digital art in general of, you know, how do you archive it and how do you also just create platforms where you can show this, like your work to somebody who say, you know, isn't necessarily going to have access to like New Art City or kind of like maybe somebody that is or maybe people that aren't like necessarily as tech savvy. I ran into that experience a few times with my original New Art City space where, you know, it was good to have secondary documentation of it because some people just want to like are more able to interact with the video or photos than they are of the sort of virtual space. So to kind of open it up, I'm curious to know the archiving of virtual world and digital spaces, is this something you've encountered in your practice? Is this something you've done in the past to sort of create documentation of work within virtual spaces? And also, have you had any experiences with the platform sort of going defunct, you know, like do you have any like, you know, Tumblr's Tumblr accounts that are like, you know, still floating around or like websites that have gone away or anything like that? So, yeah, just to kind of open it up today is all about archives of virtual spaces and I guess I'll stop playing the video, but I'm going to post a link. The whole video is like an hour and 40 minutes or something. And it's just it's really, really interesting. Yeah, I would definitely recommend watching all of it, especially if you like Chris Marker. Yeah, to open it up, what has been your experience with documentation and archives of virtual slash digital spaces? I've definitely thought about it before. I didn't think about it really until, I don't know if you guys heard, but in 2022, HBO went on like a spree of removing a bunch of shows. They not only did they cancel a bunch of animated shows, but they also went ahead and completely deleted the shows from their streaming platforms. And so all those directors, all those animators, everyone who had worked on those shows, on those animated shows, just all of a sudden had no way to access all that work. And it really made me think about how we're at the mercy of sort of the platforms that we host. At least I feel that way. I feel my work isn't anywhere else besides my hard drives and Instagram, really. And I guess my portfolio, so if Cargo ever goes down or if Instagram ever decides to do anything with it, then my work won't really exist anywhere virtually outside of my own personal hard drives. I don't really know. I don't really have an answer or haven't really been able to find an answer to those questions. But it really I remember really the first time I really thought about it was in 2022 when HBO just straight up deleted a whole bunch of animated series from their platforms. And all those animators were basically just left without any way to access any of that work for their own portfolios and stuff. And I felt really, really, felt really cruel. But I guess the corporate, the corporate overlords don't really care about, I guess, animators and the people who actually make their shows happen. So it's something I've thought about more as of recent, but not until a couple of years ago when that whole deleting, when that whole removing spree happened. But, yeah, my work doesn't exist anywhere outside of Instagram and hard drives. So if anything happens to it, I'm not sure where it would go after. And what Alexa said, sorry. OK, what Alexa said made me think that maybe we approach the web more as a book than like a publication than life itself, because actually the fact that experience faded away as part of life. So if we go to an opening exhibition, a performance especially, it will be once in a place and never again. But probably, which is great because you enjoy more the moment. And it's like the time, the way we perceive time in life in general. But also it's bad because we didn't have a documentation of it. So probably since we feel this lack of consistency and safety of the duration of things, we are approaching the web as an archive itself. Now, just going back to what Alexa was saying and everything is there's also been a huge movement within collecting and hoarding data because a lot of streaming platforms have been like canceling a lot of stuff or not putting stuff on or just dropping it. And so there's a lot of people that are just like hoarding and collecting it and also putting it online. Like piracy has been a huge thing, a comeback, I'd say. Yeah, just something that I think about in like a term that we could like or like a kind of idea that like I want to bring into this conversation is the idea of like media materiality, right? That like even though these things exist, like, you know, New York City exists virtually or Chris Marquer's Second Life exists virtually. Actually, there is like a physical, you know, there is like physical space to it where, you know, all of these things exist on like a server or somewhere. Right. And all of these things do like theoretically exist somewhere that like, you know, there is like actually a physicality to the virtual, even though, you know, there's like many attempts. There's like a kind of a purposeful attempt for us not to think about it that way. But Alexa, what you're saying is super interesting because I don't know if this is like if it's gotten bad internationally or just in America, but like every streaming service is like, you know, charging more and kicking people off. And there's been like a real I don't know, for me, there's been a return to like collecting CDs and DVDs for that reason, so that you kind of always own, you know, the things that you that you enjoy, essentially. I've never been working or at least I didn't work with any digital archive, though, but at some point I was buying some dictaphones because I use them in my sound processing thing. And one of the dictaphones that I got, I had it from a lady that was selling the dictaphone of her mother who died months before and she sold the tapes with it. So now I have a bunch of tapes of her deceased mother speaking and it's only about her work and the meeting of professors and stuff like that, because her mother was a professor. So I kind of now own this archive and I try to make music with it. You're the new custodian, the new curator. I've got a friend who this is a bit more analogue, but he I don't know if he still does it, but he used to skip dive. So I don't know if you know that term where people throw stuff out and he's found numerous the old photographic slides and he's blown them up and used them in his work. And I think it's something you don't necessarily get in the same kind of physical way. What's interesting is talking about the tape aspect of it, because it's, you know, an old form of sort of retaining that information. Yeah, so on the Dictaphone and things like that, I guess one thing I'm curious about in my own practice and also within the space of this group is having material, having material documentation has its issues, you know, papers burn or fade away, but it does seem more sustainable than digital archiving. And I guess I'm just curious, like, how do we, you know, how does one create a sustainable archive of virtual work? You know, it's to me, it seems like this sort of impossible task because digital work is so ephemeral, right? Where it's like, just like eventually, you know, everything returns to dust or whatever. But as artists, that's not really good enough for us because we need those archives of our work. We need to show what we've done. And also, you know, down the line at our, you know, when we all have our Whitney retrospective or whatever, you know, you want to like show earlier work, but will it kind of even exist? You know, once we all, everyone that does six minutes gets a Whitney retrospective. We forgot to tell you. But yeah, but just this sort of, this sort of question of, you know, I have no answers, like, at all. My archive is actually, my work is actually all over the place. Like, I have a hard drive. I have one singular hard drive with, like, pretty much all of my work. But it just feels so, like, limiting. And yeah, curious, like, how people have encountered this in their work. What's funny is, that's something I've actually been thinking about lately is, because I have hard drives. I have hard drives everywhere, here, studio, wherever. So, I'm thinking about consolidating into a RAID system. Just so I have redundancies and everything else. And then probably do a hard backup somewhere else. So, probably do a couple different hard copy backups. And then I'll have to replace those eventually, because, you know, the thing will deteriorate. Have you got huge amounts of data to deal with? Yeah. So, like, I'm talking about stuff from, you know, 20 years ago as well. So, it's a accumulation of all my work, be it photography, graphic design, personal or corporate. So, I just want to have it all consolidated into one area to where there's redundancies. And plus, things are backed up on pretty dodgy, like, hard drives or external hard drives, where they're still using FireWire. And so, I have to figure out weird conversion things and how to transfer it. So, I think it's, for me, it's time, especially archivable stuff that I have done. Some sort of conscious awareness of this sort of deterioration of technology. It's not necessarily the data itself. There's one thing I don't fully understand is when people talk about kind of deterioration of digitally stored data. So, we'll maybe move on to that in a bit. And that's associated with the storage of NFTs. But, you know, I think the first step is to be consciously aware of how do you access that data, that information. So, things like pen drives, you know, the USB sticks will become obsolete relatively quickly. I've got scans of my first, ultrasound scans of my first born child on floppy disk things. I don't know how I'll ever access them. I'll have to go and find a machine in a museum or something. I haven't even thought about it for years, you know, and it's something that can easily slip away. But yeah, like Chris says, it's difficult to know what the answer is and how you kind of deal with it because it takes the physicality of. So, for instance, if you have it and you store it and you back it up, if it's in your house, that both backup and original and something happens, you know, that's all gone potentially. So, what do you do? How do you deal with that? Because it does require a physicality. Even the cloud is an anathema really. It's just somewhere else, isn't it? It's just storing your data in some other space. It's just that it's not literally in a cloud. But obviously, you know that. I think it throws up so many, many questions. Not necessarily an awful lot of answers. Did I post something in the chat group on Discord about the Wayback Machine? Has anybody used the Wayback Machine? So, I was about to have a discussion with Luchilla about SUT. And I remember looking at SUT some time ago when Chris and I first talked about it. And they'd already taken down that original site, which had some videos on it. And so how, it doesn't show their work in the same way. How do I just grab it and show someone? But if you go back to the Wayback Machine, it shows you data points where there's activity or changes on that website. And it attempts to archive it in some way. So, I just went on there and it was trying to show it doesn't work well with dynamic data. But you can go in and you can grab stuff because it's taken some archival image of that website as it was. But it's really faulty in how it functions. I don't want to dominate the conversation. And my solution so far has been with my video work to just try to spread it out between different sites. So, I've got Dropbox and then I've got physical hard drive. And then I upload the films themselves onto Vimeo for screening. But that's obviously much, you know, like a lower quality usually from the one that, you know, is the original. And then I have the project files with like the CGI or the video on a hard drive. But I also find it really tiring because I just have, you know, my projects, they get quite big usually because it's just there's so many components to it. So, they're just on each project is just backed up on one hard drive. And not all of what is on the hard drive is on Dropbox because that would be, you know, would be enough space. So, yeah, for me, it's an ongoing headache, really, and worry that I'll just, you know, lose everything. I tried to maybe, you know, this idea of, oh, at least there's maybe one copy somewhere maybe on Vimeo in the end if everything else fails. But yeah, I don't really have a good solution for it at all. Actually, that because like for film stuff, it's so specific to like the archive. And like, I think that one of the questions like you're kind of getting into is like, also, yeah, what do you archive, right? Like, do you archive the sort of raw files? Or do you just archive the finished piece itself? Because, yeah, you're talking about like the CGI files and everything. I was actually getting a little stressed out because I'm like, oh, I actually like recently made a film that I didn't keep any of the files that I actually made it with. I just sort of kept the final cut. And that's incredibly limiting now because if, you know, I wanted to do something else or somebody else wanted to do something else with it, it's gone, you know, I'd have to recreate it, which, you know, I just I won't do. I guess also, like, if there's kind of analogs to... Oh, Luciello, were you going to say something? Sorry. Yeah, no, a very, very shallow comment, actually. I feel like we are in a historical moment in which we have the tendency of archiving a lot and never the feeling safe about what you archive, because also with automatic drives, like, for example, Google Photos, that kind of thing, which automatically extracts everything you take pictures of, and you find yourself with 50 gigabytes of things that you don't care about, but it takes too long to go through all of them, which are maybe three, four years, I don't know, and delete all of them. So at the end, it's a little of a paradox that we really need to have something safe, such as work, for example. But at the end, we use a lot of space for unuseful things. This is a very broad comment on life, not really on work. Yeah, I actually, I feel like what you're saying, too, is there's so much, like, because kind of what you're getting at of the, like, I think we almost think, or I'll just speak, like, I'll say I think personally that, like, oh, well, it's online, or, like, I have this hard drive, and, like, I should just save everything because, you know, just because I can, essentially, but it is, it becomes, you know, an obstacle, or it's sort of also, like, how, you know, everything, like, there, you know, we're being, our data is being generated and, like, given away all the time, but you start to think about, well, like, what are people actually going to do with this? There's so much that you, like, can't really comb through, you know? This, like, yeah, these massive amounts of data. Actually, I was curious, Basil, not to put you on the spot, but because, just because I know personally, like, your sort of practice, right, is, like, so physical, that, like, I was, I kind of wanted to ask you about your, like, your physical archiving of drawings and things like that, because I think, like, there's some analogs to, like, there's things that we can learn from physical archiving with regards to this thing that Lucila brought up of, like, you know, within physical notebooks and sort of storage spaces, like, you have to choose what stays and, yeah, and maybe, like, that, like, in terms of this sort of thing of having so much archived material, maybe that would help. So, yeah, just to kind of put you on the spot for a second, I'm curious. Yeah, totally. So, like, for, I haven't, like, I have just, like, mountains of sketchbooks, and I just keep them and carry them around for the most part. I would say for, like, work that is finished that, like, I have given away or sold, I have photographs of those, and yeah, so they are kind of, they kind of exist in that kind of digital ephemeral kind of space where it's, like, if somehow iCloud just, like, stopped all of a sudden, then any trace of the work that, like, I've sold or given away would just kind of be gone. But then otherwise, honestly, I feel like my favorite way to kind of archive my own physical work is that I just kind of, like, if it's, like, a work in progress that needs more attention, I have a very specific, like, huge portfolio, like, book that stuff that I'm going to come back to lives in and then gets tucked away. And then, I think, like, finished work, I just put it on my walls. Like, I just make sure that it, like, lives on a wall where I can, like, see it at all times. So, I archive a lot of my stuff that way. And I mean, I have, I also have photographs of all of it on my iCloud as well. So, yeah, I also, I do this stupid thing, too. I have, like, some 29,000, or probably more than that now, photos on iCloud because, I guess, part of my archival process is, like, I take, like, process pictures as well. So, like, after, like, working for, like, say, three hours, I'll take a photo and then be, like, this was three hours, and then I'll just keep doing that, like, periodically as I've noticed time going by. So, yeah, I mean, I don't have, like, I don't really have, like, a good system for any of it yet. I just kind of, like, hold on to it and cling to it and keep it within an arm's reach. I think I'm, I think I also am, I think a lot of artists probably feel this way, but I'm also really, like, precious with my stuff. Like, I really am, like, like, I really want them near me, like, want my art, like, near me at all times. So, it's just, like, it is, like, for the physical work, it's totally kind of a clingy thing where I'm, like, keeping it. Like, I definitely don't need to be moving, like, you know, some 40 sketchbooks to every new apartment that I'm in, but I'm just, like, going to keep doing that probably. And, yeah, then it's, then that's kind of, like, what if my apartment caught on fire, you know? Like, then I would just have my photographs and stuff, too. But, yeah, I don't know. I've been meaning to get better at archiving. I've been trying to figure out, like, some time to, like, set up an online portfolio or a couple of different types of portfolios. Um, but for right now, mostly, I just, I just put it on my walls and just pretend that my apartment is, like, my own little Whitney retrospective at any given time. I don't know if that answers your question. I think that's a really good point. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. You're good. No, I was just saying I think it's a really good point about putting things on the wall and because what I find sometimes is that if your work is just on hard drive and you don't, I don't enjoy going through a hard drive that much. I don't know. Maybe some people do, but I don't. And then you forget about all the work that you've done, even if it's, like, you know, image-based. If you don't have it somewhere where you have access to it very easily, like, you know, Instagram or on your website or somewhere like that, if it just kind of accumulates in some, you know, dusty places, whether that's a hard drive or a folder somewhere in the attic, I think sometimes you lose connection to the work and the thought processes that you've already gone through. And you kind of, I sometimes feel like, oh, I don't even know what I have been doing all these years. I've not really been doing anything. And then I go through a hard drive and I realise, wow, there's just so much thought, so much, like, also writing and all of that. And you suddenly reconnect to that. And I think with digital, that's sometimes harder, maybe, rather than, you know, putting some things up on the wall that are physical objects. So I think, yeah, I think that's a really good point about kind of keep looking at what you have done and what there is. Yeah, I definitely use my own artwork to just encourage me to keep doing art. Because, yeah, I think that there's, I think that, like, even just a couple of years ago, I used to be a little bit more, like, minimalistic about my spaces and, like, where I was living, because I was moving around a lot. So I was just not wanting to put stuff on the walls just because I was, like, kind of just have to take it down. But then what I would notice is that I would just get really kind of, like, depressed and in a funk and be like, you call yourself an artist? Your apartment is so boring. And then I started putting the art back on the walls. And now it's just now it becomes like an echo chamber. I will say, though, that, like, I am only recently branching out into also putting other people's art on the walls, which has been helpful for my practice a little bit, just because I found when I was putting just my own art on my walls, I would end up just doing, like, variations of kind of the same painting, like, so much. Like, even now, it's like almost everything that I do is still got, like, this corporeal kind of, like, trippy person kind of vibe. Like, if you asked me to paint a chair right now, it would be so much harder for me. So go to the store and buy a picture of a chair and put that on my wall. So I'm looking at one at least. I'm feeling inspired. I've never put my own art up on the walls. But now I might go make some prints because I love my art. So why not have it up? You're right. You're so right. Definitely, you should. And then, of course, like, you have people over and they're like, oh, my God, your art. And then you're like, yeah. The question for me becomes, like, when you're working so digitally, yeah, how do you, like, print your own work? You know what I mean? Like, do you print your work and then put it up on the wall? Or, like, yeah, because I, like, I love this idea, too, where I'm like, yeah, like, it's, you know, like, we put so much time in it. You want to be, like, with your work. But yeah, what's the best way to do it? Yeah, what's the best way to, like, do that for, like, a digital artist, you know? Have a bunch of screens, yeah. Just, like, invest in a bunch of screens in your room, yeah. I was just going to say, you could, like, set it up like a Buffalo Wild Wings, like, a sports bar where there's just, like, tons of televisions all over your room. Just do, like, all of these. This is my room. I'm at my college. But just do all those, like, stuff on them. I think that would be very cool. But yeah, but I mean, it is also, like, inspiring, like, just thinking about, like, yeah, you know, like, even putting my work onto, like, a DVD or, like, a CD or something physical where it exists rather than just a hard drive. I mean, it's not, like, that doesn't technically, you know, it's not technically any better or anything like that. But just having, like, a physical DVD of, like, films that I've made or something like that feels better to me, just, like, in this conversation, thinking about it out loud. Perhaps there's something important about the tangible elements of making something physical or manifesting it in a way that you can touch it or at least touch the thing that is contained within. So it's just in the World Wide Web or the Internet, you know, it's hard to touch. And, well, it's impossible, isn't it, really? But if you, you know, you could press your digital music as a piece of vinyl or put it on tape, then you can then hand it to people. You can do something else with it. Is there some other part? Does that then change the process? Does that become something else then? Is that something? Are we doing something else? Can you be a digital Puritan and still think about that part of the process? I'm not sure. Ganda, what's happening with your tape thing? What are you doing with them? Are you going to do anything? Are you going to use other tape, analog stuff for your work? I mean, the archive that I got, I used it. Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah, both of my releases. Yeah. I also have this one in Minidisc, which is a funky format. It's in the box there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's Minidisc. It's a weird format from the 19, uh, 1919. Did that come out with CD? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a weird little CD. And, uh, yeah, that's the label with whom, with which I worked. They really do weird formats. So obviously cassette and these Minidiscs. But I mean, I also like to experiment with tapes myself. And I have this little micro cassette with, uh, yeah, this. Yeah, it's this format. That I use with dictaphones. Yeah, dictaphone. So, yeah, I don't, yeah, there is something very special using tapes because it is physical. Yes. But also with sound, it brings so much texture to it. And, uh, uh, I think it's really perfect for archiving things and making something way more, I don't know, with soul sometimes. But, uh, uh, yeah. So this tape that I had from, from that lady, I tried to use it sometimes as, as background, uh, ambient, um, sound in music or for some, uh, live performances or something like that. It's very effective for these kinds of things. Um, also sometimes I record over it, uh, when I think, uh, uh, recording is not good enough to be used for ambient thing. I can record over this tape and make my own archives over old archives. And it also brings texture to it because it erases the old one and you add your own layer, but the erasing thing is not perfect. So you still have some artifacts from the past. Um, yeah, I do look, I mean, there is a lot of funny things to do with tapes and a very nice way to archive things. I think, yeah. So do many people have a mini display? Can you, can you play on a computer? No, I don't. I don't have any, uh, mini display or, but, uh, I guess you can, you can, you can, I'm for sure you can buy one on eBay or something like that. You, it's still possible to play, play them if you want to. Uh, but definitely, so it's, it's an esoteric format now. Uh, also cassettes, not much people use, use cassette, uh, for this one, which is pretty common though, compared to many discs. Yeah. Yeah. There seems to be a revival of people using that sort of cassette tape. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There is a big community of cassette heads, let's say for in the music community, people that really like tapes and listening to music through tapes. And so labels can have like super solid core fans that buy their music because they do it in short run cassette tapes. Yeah. As a kind of, um, juxtaposition to that, um, I was wondering if, um, uh, let me just change my screen, uh, Tammy, maybe, I'm just wondering how you deal with things like, how do you even consider about archiving? You were showing us, I think as the last critter meme, this guy, which I hadn't heard of for very many minutes. I'm just wondering if you thought about, you know, as they disappear, is that something you want to grab hold of and try and keep in some way, if you've thought about that or? You're, I can't, we can't hear you, Tammy. Oh, I can hear you now. Okay. Coming back. Can you hear me now? You can now, yeah. Okay. So you were asking about, um, about like how I archive my stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. And particularly thinking about the sort of, you know, your interest in memes, um, I don't know if it's a huge interest. It obviously figures in, in your work. And I'm just wondering if you've thought about how you keep it, how you maintain access to it or whatever, you know, in the future. I do have two hard drives and I have everything in there, which is sometimes great sometimes though, because I think I only use my hard drive when I need to work on something. So I have so many unfinished projects that I was doing. And I think I just, in general, like I would save like a lot of like images on Instagram or like videos on TikTok, then I would gather them and put it in a folder in my hard drive. But once I thought I, um, left my hard drive, um, in Germany where my friend lives. So I was really like freaking out when I, um, came back to London because it had all of my work there. And I was like, oh my God, oh my God, like all of my work in there, what I'm going to do. But I found it luckily. So I think I should like think about another way to archive my work. I think so. Is the archiving of memes, yeah, it's like a very kind of popular topic right now, right? Where it's like, they've become so like, especially like politically important. Um, but there's no great way to like actually archive a meme. Um, there's, uh, let me bring this up real quick. Uh, I'm going to post it in the chat. Yeah, yeah. So the guy that I was talking about earlier, Jensen Leonard, um, who's like a meme artist, uh, did, um, they created this website, uh, him and, uh, whatever curator he was working at with at Bard, um, and, uh, created this website, uh, that serves as partial documentation, um, of his meme work. So if you go in, uh, I forget where it's under, but if you go in, there's, um, uh, a spot where all of his memes are with like different annotations. And, um, I believe that this was actually shown in the physical gallery space as well, um, the, the website. Um, so it's, it becomes like an interesting example of, um, like, you know, creating a digital archive of digital materials. Um, so, you know, that can also then be shown sort of in a physical space and it's obviously sort of interacted with like a PlayStation game or something. Um, so yeah, I just think it's like a very, um, unique example of a possible way to create an archive specifically of things like memes. And I also like that it's called the Op Metaphor. Um, how would everyone feel if we, uh, in a second here took a 10 minute break? Was that, would that feel about right? Cool. Um, yeah, I have some things I want to show after the break as well, um, to kind of, uh, uh, get our direction, our conversation going in another direction. Um, but yeah, does anyone have any comments before we take a quick, a quick break? Oh, um, say come back here in, uh, Alberta. It's, it's great. Yeah. Uh, yeah. What you call it? Um, yeah, we come back here in like, uh, at five past. Cool. Oh, April fools, thanks. Thanks, Chris. You were a day late, but thanks. Still can't. I am a fool though. Danny. Hello. Hi, sorry for being late. I just missed. The time. I don't know what happened. And the, I was in DST and it's usually at 2 PM here and now it was 1 PM. So I'm a little confused. There's quite a few links in the chat. If you want to go back to anything and we're recording it with Craig. So I'll make it live as soon as possible. And hey, may as well. Oh, mate. Oh, you didn't notice. Hey, sorry. Like was like transports in Berlin, a bit messy, but I'm here. Oh, happy you're here. Good. Just arrived home. I'm putting my setup and I'll join with the camera in a bit. I just posted a link to the origin of the word meme came about by Richard Dawkins, which is a bit of a hero of mine. Not that I really have heroes, but I kind of, I admire the guy. I think he's a smart guy and he, you don't always have to agree with him, but he has a really good way of talking to people and arguing his point. So I'm going to go back to the chat now. Yeah, time to jump back in. Matthew, what did you put in the chat? What is that? I think Conifer is another kind of web archiving platform that was created by Rezone, which is kind of like an art group. And I think what they're trying to do is it's not based on crawling, but it's, they're trying to create kind of past versions of websites that you can actually interact with. So you can use the old UI, things like that. And then I also posted their website because they have some archives of digital art as well. It's called Art Base. It's quite cool. You can go look at, you know, web-based art, things like that, and actually use them as they were intended. It's really interesting. That's really cool. I didn't know that. It's a bit like the Wayback Machine, but kind of more advanced, I would say. It's open source as well. Kind of cool. Well, it sounds like it might be better if you can interact with it. I mean, that's one of the downfalls of the Wayback Machine. If there's anything, it's sort of dynamic or interactive, it kind of falls over. It retains static content only. So it just doesn't seem very good to me. Yeah, if I understand it correctly, I think you can use it as like an extension to your browser, and you can almost like, not screenshotting, but like you can save parts of a website and have them, you know, archived and usable for future purposes. I haven't looked that much into it. I just came across it because there was a workshop in Berlin a while ago, I think, for the Transmediale. Let me see if I can find the link. But it was basically about that, you know, how to archive web pages, you know, in a better way than maybe through the Wayback Machine. I'll see if I can find the link to the workshop. It was interesting. That's super cool. Also, yeah, the fact that, yeah, Horizons found it is like, fucking cool. And yeah, if you find that link, that'd be sick. I did want to kind of like, try to steer us in the opposite direction for a sec. You know, however, because I've been, also, you know, because I've been also curious about how artists interact with virtual archives. So, rather than necessarily archiving work ourselves or, you know, creating the archive, creating the documentation, how do we work with documentation? And so, there's two sort of examples that will sort of show what I mean. I'm going to share my screen here now. Does anyone know artists in America? They've been doing some kind of interesting stuff the past few years. They, in 2020, during sort of the uprising in the summer, were to do this sort of residency with the Whitney, but the Whitney is a digital platform. And the Whitney does a lot of like, very interesting sort of digital stuff that I've only kind of become hip to recently. But for a while, they were doing this series called Sunrise Sunset, where there would be something online to sort of demarcate the time that the sun was rising in New York, and the sun was setting in New York. So, different artists had different sort of interventions on that space. And one of which was an American artist who created this thing that would like, put pictures of plywood over photos from the Whitney's collection. So, like, for 30 seconds at sunrise and sunset, you actually couldn't look at the, like, archive of the Whitney online. And this was in response to, like, a lot of things, but also just sort of the, you know, tendency of major institutions to, oh, activate your, never mind. That looks awesome. But sort of the tendency of large institutions to create, or to, you know, show stolen objects and things like that. So, yeah, American artists, they created this in response to that. And it was really interesting because you, like, essentially couldn't access the archive for a minute a day, 30 seconds in the morning, 30 seconds at night. And it was just, like, a fairly interesting intervention on, you know, this sort of institution's digital archive page. Another sort of interesting version of this is artists, let me find their name, Cecil B. Evans created sort of, like, an early AI chatbot that lived on Serpentine's website, which was less about, like, archive and more about sort of interact with the website of an institution. But it was super interesting. Agnes is kind of, like, an ongoing project that this artist has. And in this version, or this iteration, she essentially created, like, a spam bot for the Serpentine's website. So, yeah, I'm, in these two examples, I'm just sort of curious about how, you know, we can also work with an archive or work with sort of, like, institutional documentation that exists online to create sort of artistic interventions. And I'm going to kind of open it up to all of you. Like, is there, do you know of any sort of examples of things that are similar? Have you had opportunities to work with different sort of galleries or institutions, digital archives at all, or anything like that? So, rather than thinking about our own documentation, thinking about, you know, the ability to create with archival and documented material that already exists. Or to put it in another way, is it something that is of interest to, you know, have access and to create with digital archives? Is that something that you're at all interested in? And, you know, thinking of, like, the archive, like, digital archives here can be anything from, like, YouTube videos to, you know, actual sort of official institutional websites. I've never used any official archive or something, but I know that Boards of Canada used to use a lot of archive sounds from ads that they used to have in the TV in the 1980s. Maybe I can find the list of the archives they used in their discography. But, yeah, definitely I think it's something that is in music. It's something that can be very useful, because archives comes with their dose of memory and emotions of a certain time, and it can enhance some emotional relationship with a work of art. And I think, like, musicians sort of within pop culture do, like, like Boards of Canada or shit, even just, like, you know, earlier today I was talking about, like, MF Doom samples, you know, with someone, but musicians sort of do, like, have used archives in a way that we don't even think about them. Like, you know, like, Boards of Canada, like, you're talking about, it's like, oh, yeah, I know Boards of Canada, but you, like, I wouldn't have even necessarily, like, made the connection right away that it's sort of, like, archival material, that it is a version of this. Yeah, that's, like, a really good example, I think. I guess also it becomes a thing of, like, what is the relationship between archives and remix culture, you know, or archives and even meme culture, you know, what, I guess, also, like, what do we define as, like, a virtual archive or a digital archive and things like that? You mentioned Tumblr earlier on in our session, and I think that it's been a lot of, I mean, I was active on Tumblr in, like, 2011, 2012, and I haven't gone back in years, but I'm sure if I signed in again, it would be a really pretty cool, pretty good archive of sort of the visual things that I was interested in as, like, a late high schooler, whatever those late teens, early 20s years were, I thought, whatever those interests were, I'm actually curious to go back and see. And I would say maybe for a lot of people who were active on Tumblr and who fell off when Tumblr kind of died out, if we were all to go back and see, it would probably stand, if the sites are still up, they would stand as a pretty good digital archive of internet culture from whenever those years were. I've definitely have looked at my Tumblr from when I was in, like, high school age, late middle school age, and it, yeah, it all still is there, and it is like what you were saying, Alexa, it is very much like a little archive of, like, it's not my own work, but it's like an archive of, like, what I was into, like, my little Pinterest board or whatever from that time, which is cool. I was also looking at this, I was looking at the Public Domain Review, they have a really good Instagram account that I really like, that kind of, they post, like, really, these, like, ornate and kind of almost psychedelic, like, old artwork pictures on Instagram, and then you can go onto the actual Public Domain Review website, let me see if I can find a link, and that's a really interesting and cool archive of, like, medieval art and that kind of thing, and it is really fun to bounce around through. I especially like that it's, like, Public Domain artwork, so it's, like, stuff that's not, like, it's, like, you can use it however you'd like, basically, which I think is cool. I wonder if I can find it. I know that, for example, for fonts, when I'm posing just through some font for a new project, for example, I always check a website called, it's a French one, it's called Pousse ta Font, and they also, it's a huge library, and it allows you to go towards, to find foundries, type foundries, where open source ones, ones actually from the web archive, and all of these, so you really have a huge library of, even fonts that are not really used now, that were made in the 2000s, and you really find, like, very weird stuff that are well made, better than that font, for example, so it can be pretty cool. Yeah, I also sometimes use the archive, like, not really from internet, but it's on internet, from old paintings, that you can now use, from the museums, I think in the Netherlands, most of them have that, where they really have, they have scanned and photographed all the old paintings from, I forgot their name. I think the Smithsonian as well has digitized a lot of their, a lot of the pieces in their collection, and there's a lot of sort of 3D sculptures and assets up on their library, I think they're mainly aiming for people to do 3D printing and scanning, and I haven't used it recently, but I think you can just, they have a bunch of assets up that they 3D scan, just available to, for anyone to use, which I think is really, really cool. Actually, on… Listening to you, I was, sorry, I was just reasoning about the difference between archives and museums, which is, of course, the curation, but I was thinking that, well, okay, we listed and we know many online archives, but is there any online museum, like, properly said? So, not really a gallery, so, that you exhibit your paintings, or a very small circle of artists, but like a museum online, that develops through websites. That's an interesting question. I'm not sure I know the answer to that one, but I'd be interested to know if there's something like that, or based on that idea. I don't know of any. Do you mean like a museum for websites, or like a museum just hosted on a website? On a website, of any topic, but that develops, the way the curatorial path develops in real life, but it could develop in real life, but online. Because usually, okay, every museum has a website, which is an information point, usually, and then there are archives, which you can actually make your research, but you are usually free, or the content is pushed, but for commercial purposes, like on Spotify. Spotify is also a big archive, and anyway, it gives you suggestions, and anyway, it gives you suggestions, so you're not really completely free to browse around. You are, but you have suggestions, but they are sale-based, sort of, and museums shouldn't usually. I think museums have problems of their own, don't they, in terms of archives. They have huge stores that aren't shown, and they choose at certain points to curate and show those particular pieces in some way, and curate them, and maybe have information boards, and I know some museums have tried to shift towards, I can't remember the terminology, but it's something to do with these open archives, so that you can go in and see the stores, but you don't necessarily know what it is you're seeing, and it's not necessarily written about, and curated, and displayed in a traditional sense for the public, but you can get access to them, and I think, you know, this is more of a progressive way for museums to justify their storage space that they need to maintain, to have all that stuff, and I imagine there's something similar in the way we think about, you know, the digital realm, that it still needs that physicality, but how do you access it in a way that's meaningful, or makes some sense, or, you know, does it have to be curated? Can it just exist somewhere where you can go in, and there's a massive room of the web, the past web, or something, or maybe there's sections that are kind of thematic, or something. I don't know, I think it's a question we're actually shifting into that space a bit more, and those questions are being asked. I've worked with a group called V21 Art Space, they do 3D recording, they go in and do 3D scanning of places like Hauser and Wirth, they go to various Biennales, I think they went to Venice recently, and they basically create a digital version of some of their shows, but they are trying to now get funding to create an archive of those, that digitization, and, you know, until that happens, they don't feel they can justify doing much with it, but, I mean, that's a commercial aspect to all that, that's another question aside, but I think it's yet to be formed how exactly we're going to interact, you know, and how it makes sense, but I think the majority of us have some historical sense, don't we, of some archive, some history of something we want to tap into, some reference point, something we want to key into, and it's kind of a possibly unanswerable question, maybe. I know that also the Louvre in Paris is not actually making their archives on internet, but every time they do a small special exhibition where they're going to show some special archives, they used to reach out to my old school, and actually during our Masters, we had always a project with the Louvre where we had to make a very gamified interactive experience where we would interact with one of the pieces of that exhibition, but it's really commercial, as you said, it's not really going to what's really archiving, sadly. I don't want to jump too far from this. Sorry, who's next? No, I was just, like, thinking about this idea of, like, talking about the archive, talking about the museum, talking about, like, places where you get fonts from or where you get, like, music, like Spotify, and how this, like, actually, at least from my understanding, they're also not necessarily archives, and they also manifest such, like, different things, like, in itself, like, for me, like, at least for my experiences of, like, working with archives, and this was more on a sonic level to do some shows for LYL radio station, or, like, right now that I'm working with Radio Al Ahara, I don't know if any of you know, and, I mean, especially now with the whole, like, Palestinian and Israel situation, like, these are, like, actual archives that, I don't know, like, they just mean so much more than, I don't know, these platforms that we are somehow, I don't know, I just feel like the idea of archive just has such a different, like, interaction with whoever is using it, and also this idea of, like, non-curatorial, like, predetermined, like, setting of tools, which, for example, I don't know, talking about a platform such as, like, Spotify or talking about a museum that predefines the way you interact with whatever you're given access to, like, these are very different things, like, for me, like, and I'm just also thinking about the implications of, like, what does it mean, and what we actually, like, like, frame to be an archive in that sense, which I think it's very important, like, to also, like, keep that idea that when we are, like, interacting with these tools, being on a platform level or being on an institutional level, they have very different effects. I love what you said there about, like, you know, what sort of gets defined as an archive, or, you know, what we see, because when he first started speaking about, like, different radio stations, I was actually just thinking about how some of the best sort of digital archives tend to be for music, for, like, MTS, or, like, the lot radio has an okay one, but maybe we, like, don't think about them as proper archives, you know, with, like, a capital A, because they're just, like, radio shows or whatever, but there's such a long history there, like, within music, so, you know, a question for me becomes, yeah, then how do we, like, why is music so good at, like, the music space so good at archiving and keeping track records of everything, right, and the visual space is not, right, like, the visual space is, or at least when we start thinking about things digitally, like, visuals, visual arts is really, like, lacking in terms of creating that same sort of accessible archives that, like, that radio is and things, and just, like, as a kind of a side note, you know, like, I did a lot of research with actually, like, the history of the Grateful Dead and sort of, like, the hippie movement and how, like, Grateful Dead, like, Deadheads especially were sort of, like, early archivers of music and, like, of sort of bootleg, or not, like, archivers of music, but archivers of music in a way that we sort of understand now. They were sort of some of the earliest people on, like, internet forums, like, The Well that started in, like, the 80s and 90s was full of Deadheads sort of, like, archiving different shows and different, like, music, like, different tapes that were going around at the time. So, music has this, like, sort of long history with the internet of, or popular music has a long history with the internet of sort of creating these archive spaces, but yeah, I just don't think visual arts necessarily does in the same way. So, yeah, I guess the question to us, you know, is, like, how do we, how do we change that? How do we make it accessible? Does anyone have any examples of any sort of, like, good visual arts archives? I know Basil put the Public Domain Review in, which is, like, pretty cool earlier, and some others, but yeah, I'm curious if anyone knows of any, like, institutions or, or as Zora said, Duluth as well, but yeah, does anyone have any sort of examples of other institutions that are doing archiving in, like, an interesting way or, like, an accessible way or anything like that? Or actually, let me open that up to not just, like, institutions. Let's, we can totally get away from, like, thinking about institutions and galleries, because I think some of the more interesting archive stuff online that's happening, right, is, like, with forms of culture that aren't necessarily, like, white, white, white cube galleries and things like that, you know. My friend yesterday was showing me that he hasn't ever watched Curb Your Enthusiasm as a show, but he watches, there's, like, a curb, I think it's literally just called, like, Curb Your Tube on YouTube, where he watches all of the clips from Curb Your Enthusiasm, and he's kept up, because they, like, have this, like, remarkably, like, these people who are, like, remarkably dedicated to archiving different clips from Curb Your Enthusiasm, so to open it up, maybe even just, like, away from, like, institutions, like, does anyone have any sort of, yeah, any sort of archives that they're, they're interested in? I actually just want to add something that also somehow responds to what you're asking. Like, from, for example, the Radio Al-Ahara, I'm going to share here, because it's someone that I'm working with right now, and I enjoy the fact that they, their approach to, like, the archive and their approach to, like, making the archive visible is very ephemeral, because they don't really believe in the idea of, like, having, like, a consistent, like, lineup of, like, shows. The show basically happens one time, and that is the archive, like, the work, the archive is, like, the present moment, and I think that this, like, even the way they select the people with whom they work, it's very, like, open, as in, like, it's more like a, the radio more like as a public space rather than, like, a framed set of, like, shows. That's, that's how usually archives work, that everything is, like, I know, tag, name, whatever, whatever, or at least some of the files that are there. And adding to this, I was just thinking how much, like, the idea of, like, non-private archives or, like, community regulated archives, and it just came to my mind, like, there is this, as someone that is right now, like, writing my thesis, like, of course that I'm always on the hunt for, like, PDFs and things like that, and there is this, like, Facebook page that is literally called Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access, and I think it is a very beautiful archive in the sense of, like, there is this, like, interchangeable, yeah, level of archiving and sharing, and that is really, like, non-private or whatever is private is made public, like, yeah, I was just thinking about the power of community or on community and how it can be, yeah, manifested and shared. Maybe to go back to what you were talking about, that's something I've been thinking about for myself personally is not, well, community, yeah, but the verbal history of things, right, and in a lot of indigenous communities, they use verbal history throughout time to, you know, tell their history, tell the story of why they are where they are and the people that live in those spaces, so it's something I've been toying around with because I don't believe an archive is necessarily logged and put and cataloged, and you think of it this specific way, but it lives more and less throughout the other peoples, not necessarily through the individual that's coalescing. Definitely, I mean, that frames a lot, like, these conversations of, like, who's speaking and who's framing those conversations, like, it's a very good point on, like, how knowledge is, like, carried and where it stems from. Has anyone here, Berto, your comment kind of reminded me of, has anyone read Cruising Utopia? I forget his full name, but there's this, he talks a lot about, sort of, like, queer events and, like, sort of, like, especially, like, queer dance parties and things like that existing as kind of only memories after, I forget the actual term that he uses, but it's, like, queer ephemera, where it's, like, you know, and this could be applied to, like, any number of, sort of, like, subcultural groups, but the idea of, like, you know, if you attend raves or you attend, sort of, like, different parties, you know, the archives of those things get really messy, right, because, you know, a lot of times it's, like, happening literally underground, like, in spaces that aren't, you know, like, officially sanctioned or anything like that, so how do you, sort of, archive something like that? And, like, Berto, what you're saying is interesting, because it's, like, yeah, there's also this element of, like, you know, like, maybe we almost rely too much on this idea that everything, you know, can exist on the internet or something, or everything can be you know, can exist on the internet or something, or everything can be archived, like, we have so many, sort of, like, Lucia's comment earlier, right, we have, like, so many, sort of, like, so much that we can archive or, like, space to archive or to document that we, you know, become so consumed by doing that we forget that there are, like, that for human history we've been doing it by other methods, you know, and I think that that's, yeah, just, like, a really, like, important point that you brought up, right, of, like, these, sort of, other methods of creating archive outside of just, sort of, like, you know, keeping something on your hard drive or, you know, sort of visual or even materially focused, yeah. Also, Basil, would you care to talk a little bit about a vibe or aesthetics, the aesthetic documents that you posted, because I, yeah, I love that, so. Have you looked at it before? Have you, like, scrolled around on that wiki before? Yeah, it's really cool. So, there's this wiki, I was introduced to it by this YouTube video I stumbled upon by Lily Alexandra and called Millions of Dead Vibes, How Aesthetics Hurt Art, and it just talks about, like, the, like, she just, they just talk about, like, this, like, natural, desire to, like, categorize yourself or everything around you, like, the natural drive to taxonomize or whatever, but the resource that they talk about in the video that I always have a lot of time, a lot of fun playing around on, spending time on, is this aesthetics.fandom.com. It's, like, a Wikipedia of all of those aesthetics and subsets of aesthetics, like, categorize and then, like, put into a wiki, which I guess a bunch of people collaborate on, which is really cool, but then if you scroll through the pages, it has all these different options, trying to find, like, some funny ones. Corporate punk aesthetic is, like, right above cottagecore aesthetic is right above coquette, you know, and then cottage gore is a subset of cottagecore, you know, so it's just, like, all, it's just, like, this kind of aesthetics Wikipedia that honestly could just, like, be endlessly expanding, which I love, and if you click on any of the individual aesthetics, they've, like, put together a little, almost, like, Pinterest board of photos or images that kind of emulate that aesthetic, and I think it's a really interesting and funny archive because it's, like, kind of, it's an archive, but it's, like, being made up on the spot as, like, it's not archiving something in history so much as, like, naming things that already exist and then archiving the name of the thing, which I think is funny, but the video is a good, it's a good watch, and obviously it falls short, you know, like, I'm, like, maybe I should get on here and start editing because definitely need to put some more gorp aesthetics in here. Definitely bounce around on that. Some of the, some of the photos are just completely wrong, I will say, though. Like, some of the aesthetics, they don't nail, but, because they're made up, you know what I mean? Like, anyone could have a different opinion of what any of these are, but I still think it's funny. Well, it's a particularly interesting example of, sort of, digital archive because it's creating the thing while also archiving it, right? It's, like, you know, that, like, like, what you're kind of getting at, like, they get it wrong, but they're, like, not at all, sort of, like, stable categories, right? Like, I just saw one that was, like, 2000s virtual singer, which is, like, crazy, but it's, like, and you kind of have an idea of what that looks like, but this is super interesting to me because it's, like, it's, it's doing archive, but in a very, like, it's archiving, but in a very different way, right, of, like, it's coming from, it's not coming from, like, this historical place, it's not coming from, like, oh, these are things I created, it's actually, sort of, creating while it's, like, memorializing, which is, like, super fascinating and also something that I think we do on the internet a lot, right? Like, we do, we sort of, like, realize later on that, oh, yeah, I remember, like, global coffeehouse, global, yeah, global coffeehouse aesthetic and things like that, so I think, yeah, I think that this is, like, a really, like, fantastic example of digital archive as something sort of different than institutional or, like, physical archiving. I think what I like the most about it is on each aesthetic, or, like, for most of them, there's, like, a little section that you get to that has media, and then it'll tell you books, movies, songs, or documentaries that kind of capture that vibe and aesthetic, which I think is really funny and cool, too. You can really deep dive into, like, what the creator thought this aesthetic was. I remembered of another archive that is community-based, and it was launched by a girl studying in architecture master course a few years ago, and she wanted to collect some examples of forgotten architecture, and so she launched, I don't know exactly how it started, but she launched a Facebook page, and a lot of people started to send from all over the world, but especially Europe, pictures of architectures that were very weird and that have clearly a project behind, so sorry or not, and usually unknown, but, like, the gas station or, I don't know, whatever, and they collected really many, many examples of it, and so she wrote her thesis and became a book, and now there's also, she made an Instagram profile that I'm going to type in the chat, which is interesting, but now she sort of finished the project, but I am very interested about how she managed to collect so much material through people just by launching a subject. This is fantastic, and yeah, also, just like another example of, right, yeah, that sort of naming a thing to be, like, I guess another example is, like, liminal space, like, there's a lot of liminal space accounts, right, and we all kind of, like, when I say liminal space, we all kind of, like, an idea comes to mind, right, like, of what liminal space is, but it's, like, this thing that, you know, didn't, like, exist, like, or, like, existed, but maybe, like, wasn't so, like, people didn't have such a clear vision of what, like, liminal space was as, you know, as we do now, maybe. I'll post an example in the chat of, like, a liminal space account, but, like, yeah, this idea of, like, forgotten architecture, you know, and being able to say, like, oh, this is, like, sort of an example of forgotten architecture and having, being able to sort of have a conceptualization of that is super, it's just something super interesting that I think we're able to do now that maybe we weren't before we got to the sort of, you know, age of social media and things like that. Super cool example, though. We only have, like, about 10 or so minutes left. We can kind of start to wrap up. So, yeah, I'm just curious, like, if we're reflecting on everything we've spoken about today and in the last hour or so, are there any final thoughts or sort of, like, examples of things that come to mind or any, yeah, just any kind of, like, parting thoughts? I have a couple of observations that might just trigger some sort of thoughts maybe for the future that actually there's a kind of counterpart to all this that actually in storing and creating this history and this thread of work, even if it's a personal thing, we start to create this digital identity. And it's what a lot of people maybe think they don't necessarily want to exist. They maybe want to sever themselves or remove some elements of that digital archive. And maybe it's just the other side of the story. So I think, Basil, you were talking about wanting to have all of your artwork around you. And when I was sculpting, I kind of felt almost when I finished, I decided I just had to do the reverse and I had to get rid of everything. I just wanted to sort of obliterate our identity to some extent. I was just thinking about how that features in this digital world. If we capture everything and it's all accessible and all available, you know, how do we feel? I just sort of throw that out there. I suppose I was thinking in part, you know, do we all feel that our pathway as an artist, you feel happy with the looking back at that trajectory that you've done or is there any part of which you think, actually, I don't want to know about that bit. I want to remove that bit. I want to separate from that identity, you know, and maybe. I don't know if remove is the right word or disassociate. Yeah, sometimes I definitely feel a little bit trapped in like what kind of work I'm currently doing and like think about what it would be like to try and experiment with other things. And I do think that it's like I think I think when I was younger, I'd done that a handful of times, actually, where I did just kind of like have this get rid of everything and start from scratch and have a new identity. But then I think I noticed that I did that all the time. And then I was just making like one or two things and then being like, no time for a new identity. So now it's kind of like even when I get the urge to do that, I'm kind of like, or maybe just keep on working with this and see how far you can go with it before you like just make things take a little longer this time. See what else happens. It's like a timing thing, probably. Oh, that's me. Ignore me. I don't know. I'm messing around. Sorry. Yeah, thinking about a final thought. Sorry, I forgot. Just forgot. I'll come back. There was one additional thing. Sorry, there was one additional thing I wanted. I thought was interesting in terms of the trend of how things are moving forward in terms of lots of organisations are now talking, particularly within the art world, digital world of decentralisation and what that actually means in terms of archiving and access. And I think it's a big topic and not necessarily one that we answer now, but it has implications in terms of, you know, this ubiquity in terms of, you know, this ubiquity in terms of, I want to be able to access this stuff all the time. Now, when people talk about decentralisation, I think it's a relative concept, a relative term, in fact. So for some people, it means pulling back that storage, that archive and that data from these massive organisations like Amazon and reclaiming that data and saying it's our data. And you're kind of removing it from those points, those huge data centres and those huge international corporations that actually store it and own it and keep it. But the implications are then that actually you're containing it somewhere else. And what are you actually doing with it? And how do you safeguard it? And how do you look after it? But also, it still needs an arbiter, somebody to look after it. And in some ways, you're still, it's not really decentralised in the true sense of the word. It can't really just be yours and no one else's, because that's not how it operates. It just doesn't function that way. I think it's an interesting shift in terms of mentality about how perhaps it's more to do with political landscape rather than actual, you know, the best thing to do in terms of digital access. I'm not sure. I just thought I'd throw that out. Did that make sense? Yeah, sure. It makes a lot of sense. Also, all the issue we talked about during the whole session about possessing our own things. So, it's definitely a huge point. I actually wanted to say before that, at the end, even if I recognise and we all recognise that it's a need to find a way to archive a project works, things happening on the web. On the other hand, it's also interesting that something finishes. The Penguin experience, I guess, was way stronger and way more remarkable because it ended. Also, I read a book. I probably already talked about it in the CRIT session, but about a metaverse which is called Active World. That was one of the first metaverses populated by people and built by people, which is now still an archive. You can still access it, but nobody goes there, basically. They made a research about this big archive of spatial design, basically, on the net, but it became a cemetery, sort of. So, it never ended because you can still walk in there, but it's a dead place. Sometimes, I also feel like that when you talk about, not really the intention of archiving, but when you talk about spaces of life, such as video games, virtual worlds or chats, it's also interesting, maybe somehow better, even if this is more a subjective, maybe, comment, but it's interesting if they finish. It's more powerful under certain points of view. Your words just reminded me of a work of a very close friend of mine who is a digital artist. I'm right now on his website. In 2017, he created this work that is called Memorial Feeds. I'll share here this, but all you can see is how it was exhibited, which basically was a page that with a developer was able to get the images from people that were already dead on Facebook. You could, like that article, like code or whatever, was able to just create this Memorial Feeds of everyone that was declared to be dead. It would automatically add onto this page that was endless and always adding by the minute, because there was this trend of when you die, you could actually select, inform Facebook that this person died because he didn't want to let go of that profile, et cetera, et cetera. Then linking a bit back to what Daniel was talking about, having someone that kind of holds somehow, it reminds me of right now, if you try to access the page through the hyperlink that my friend created for this, that at the time was working while the exhibition was, well, because he basically got funds for this to be running. Once the funds ended, there is this blank page of just white squares. That's how it remains now, because the page is not maintained, so it kind of like links both your conversations together. We are at time here on the dot, so we can totally wrap this up. I did just want to bring attention to on Thursday, we are going to be sort of doing not quite a crit, not quite a workshop, and then next Tuesday, we are going to have guest editors from CLOT come in, so the schedule is changing just a little bit, but we will put reminders in Discord and everything like that. Yeah, this was a really good conversation. Again, I'm getting very sad that we're getting very close to the end here, so, yeah, thanks, everyone, for coming today, and as always, you can continue to chat in other channels. Also, there's Processing the Processing Foundation. Ametha mentioned this earlier. They're doing a grant right now that's directly related to new media archiving, so they're giving away like $10,000. I don't know what the parameters are, but you should check it out if you're interested in sort of doing archiving of new media in virtual spaces and things, so, yeah, thanks again, everyone, for today. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Yeah, I'll see you there in a second.
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