From 62e25f5e0f3d7bda96193c7ba4de526ca9efafee Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tomislav Medak Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 13:01:37 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Update content/reflection/archiveapocalypse.md --- content/reflection/archiveapocalypse.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/reflection/archiveapocalypse.md b/content/reflection/archiveapocalypse.md index 4d55c2c..8cc562b 100644 --- a/content/reflection/archiveapocalypse.md +++ b/content/reflection/archiveapocalypse.md @@ -50,12 +50,12 @@ In 1984, after two years of interdisciplinary deliberation across the world, the This brings us, finally, to public shadow archives and libraries. Aren’t the contemporary shadow librarians a sort of a Human Interference Task Force? With an important difference: they want interference, they don't want to warn some future recepient of the archive to leave it alone, they want her to interfer, to dive into the archive. Yet, there is also a similiarity, as ![](glassblower:nickthurston.md) has pointed out by comparing the nuclear “archive” with the “public library”. The “radioactivity” of UbuWeb – and other archives, including the pioneering work and tragic fate of Aaron Swartz – consists in its mission to make knowledge publicly available and free, thus subverting the prevailing model of intellectual property and the highest semiotic order that organizes our present, namely, capital – and profit. -So, are the custodians and those involved in shadowing and mirroring some sort of preppers? On the contrary, while the Silicon Valley billionaires are building nuclear shelters on New Zealand and preparing escapes to Mars with their own private archives, shadow librarians are interested in spreading, decentralizing and decolonizing archives, creating conditions for “autonmous life” [shard: Saša Savanović, Autonomous life] in the here and now, while “becoming parasitic” [shard: Saša Savanović, Becoming parasitic] and “barbarian” [reflection: Olga Goriunova]. Their strength is not in acceleration and growth, but in slowness. Like Michael Ende's Momo. While hacking temporality, they rehabilitate and reinvent the vernacular. They are embracing the inevitable: namely the possibility of post-linguistic communication that is not ashamed of being absurd, on the contrary, they take the absurd as the means of survival. +So, are the custodians and those involved in shadowing and mirroring some sort of preppers? On the contrary, while the Silicon Valley billionaires are building nuclear shelters on New Zealand and preparing escapes to Mars with their own private archives, shadow librarians are interested in spreading, decentralizing and decolonizing archives, creating conditions for “![autonomous life](shard:autonmouslife.md) in the here and now, while “![becoming parasitic](shard:becomingparasitic.md)” and “![barbarian](reflection:barbarianlibrary.md)”. Their strength is not in acceleration and growth, but in slowness. Like Michael Ende's Momo. While hacking temporality, they rehabilitate and reinvent the vernacular. They are embracing the inevitable: namely the possibility of post-linguistic communication that is not ashamed of being absurd, on the contrary, they take the absurd as the means of survival. -Shadowing, mirroring, copying, permacomputing, combining low-tech and sustainable technology, using systems that are easily constructed and deconstructed, might seem a bit absurd in a world on the verge of biospheric and semiotic collapse, but as the Custodians remind us in their solidarity letter with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub [shard: Custodians.Online "In solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub]: +Shadowing, mirroring, copying, permacomputing, combining low-tech and sustainable technology, using systems that are easily constructed and deconstructed, might seem a bit absurd in a world on the verge of biospheric and semiotic collapse, but as the Custodians remind us in ![their solidarity letter with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub](shard:libgenscihubletter.md): > This is the time to recognize that the very existence of our massive knowledge commons is an act of collective disobedience. -The “public library” as an institution for survival [shard: Tomislav Medak, Libraries against the separation from the common], or the archive as barbarian and parasitic – is indeed an act of collective disobedience. It is the contemporary response to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in which firemen burn books, while so called “drifters” become living archives – each of them having memorized books in order to rebuild society after the dystopian nightmare. +The “public library” as an institution for survival (see: ![](shard:thecommon.md)), or the archive as barbarian and parasitic – is indeed an act of collective disobedience. It is the contemporary response to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in which firemen burn books, while so called “drifters” become living archives – each of them having memorized books in order to rebuild society after the dystopian nightmare. More recently, the science fiction film Leave the World Behind ends with a girl finding an underground bunker with shelves filled with DVDs, including, the final season of Friends which she watches while the world is ending. “If there's any hope left in this fucked-up world, I want to at least find out how things turn out for them”, says the girl, meaning the six principal characters of Friends.