Archive vs Artifact non-minutes from a discussion on documentation

Dear nonsiters,

Your 5/4/08 general meeting stimulated as much thought as your events have for me, and led me to try to write down some thoughts on the issue of documentation, arising out of some of the ideas that were being discussed. They were quite far-reaching I think! So apologies in advance for going on at some length, and recapping a lot that you’ve already considered in one way or another, and with hopes that this is the most appropriate forum on the website…

I got the sense from those present that there is consensus that archiving its work should be unquestionably be part of what nonsite does. Material like photos, video and audio recordings, and transcriptions of texts that are used or created at nonsite events should be produced and stored, you’ve indicated. This needs to be done for internal as well as external reasons—to support the work of the artists in the collective (or participating in its events), as Wendy pointed out, and also to demonstrate what the work of the collective is for those who are not members, participants, or audience at events, and make that work accessible to them, as comprehensively as possible.

The website seems like the obvious tool for archiving, once the archival material begins to be consistently produced. Web technology has the capability to do all those things you identified. Formats vary widely, and I am somewhere in the Stone Age in my understanding of how multivalent sites are created, and the capabilities and limitations of different formats, but I’m sure we all use websites every day now that have visual galleries, and/or links to video, audio, text, other sites, and so forth. The author I’m translating has an extensive online archive, including recorded talks, television appearances, scholarly articles related to her work, etc. If she were a visual artist, the site would no doubt have some sort of a gallery. I found it extraordinarily comprehensive and really easy to navigate. (Here’s the link iyi: www.carmenboullosa.net) I think the main difference with your archive as you’ve described it would be its wiki-ness; I don’t know what the contingencies of that interactivity are; I’m sure those of you who’ve been working with the site do. And then there is the taxonomy, as Taylor said, so key to the actual usability of any site: is every event (classified under each curriculum) to be thought of as a kind of node that generates a multimedia archive and incorporates links that branch out to the participants, their subjects, related subjects, discussion around the event or the subject and so forth? That would seem logical in theory, and I’m guessing also possible in a wiki format.

(In terms of external access to the whole phenomenon of nonsite, there’s also the question of linking to other existing sites, even having a page on wikipedia itself, or some other compendia, I suppose. That’s huge. But not part of the discussion I heard.)

The issues around creation of an old-style brick and mortar publication that you raised are more complex and difficult to parse. But perhaps they could be summed up as: What would it be? Who would it be for? and mainly: Why do it at all?

I’ll start with the why. For me, the difference between what the web technology you have can do and what a publication is (although the lines are blurring and will continue to do so as books become more accessible in virtual formats) is essentially the difference between an *archive* and an *artifact.* The archive you want to create is open-ended and participatory; it will evolve as long as the collective does. An artifact, as several people pointed out, freezes everything at a particular point in time, it acquires authority because of its persistence and its finality, in fact, in some sense because of its non-interactive nature (and even because of its physicality— although that bias is diminishing fast). I don’t think there is a point in creating artifacts unless there is somehow a sense of completion you want to convey: we explored X and this is what we found, these were our results (in however expanded a sense you conceive that). I think it’s also quite possible to incorporate a methodology and say to readers: now you take it from here, but perhaps the main thing a publication could do given the goals of this collective is transmit exemplary work (say, of a particular curriculum, since that seems to be the fundamental organizational principle for the work you’re doing) and maybe a limited amount of analysis that somehow crystallizes the experience of the curriculum, in a way that should be integral, an aesthetically and intellectually fulfilling experience in itself.

But beyond this any person or group who undertakes creating a book of any kind fundamentally has to believe in the *book as book.* It has to be felt that the book as book, that particular medium, still has a distinct and useful role to play in transmitting what you want to transmit, whether it’s at the level of a few hundred or thousands of entities, or no one would spend the time it takes to put it together in a way that actually makes it a worthwhile experience as a book— even, or especially, something that sounds as down-to-earth as a workbook, but given your ethos, I’m sure would be considered just as much a labor of craft, intention and purpose. In other words, the production of the publication has to be to some extent an end in itself. I know I’m stating the obvious here— it’s clear you’ve already mulled over a lot of this individually or collectively— but I thought it might be helpful to try to sum up what I heard.

(Periodical journals are in a different category, and I was going to expound on them too, but I think from an initial understanding of what you do and are, they are probably the least likely medium for you to engage in. In fact, just about anybody outside of an academic institution is crazy to think of producing a serious periodical, however occasional, these days, which is sad, considering what such journals— particularly from outside the academy-- have meant to creative communities in the past, even the fairly recent past. The web has yet to fill this role, at least for creative writing and long-form thinking; I’m not sure it can, the medium presents too many potential divagations too easily-- but it does work to support communities in other ways, as you know, and it's much friendlier to visual media.)

So anyway that’s an idea of the *why* for a book, and in some way, the *what* as well. I think the distrust of claims of authority, the preference for fluidity, even if it means evanescence, is entirely justified given how toxic such authoritative claims often are and how implicated they are in establishing just the sorts of divisions that out of control hierarchies thrive on, the sorts of divisions you are trying to break down. So it seems that only once there was a sense that you had an endpoint in some aspect of the project that could serve as a beginning for others, would there be a real reason for producing a publication.

But even so, who would it really be for? How would it be made available? Would it ultimately just collect dust in boxes somewhere? There are no easy answers to those questions, except to say that knowledge is diffusive, your ethos and experience are worth disseminating by whatever means you can, and people will always seek out what they need in any area through a variety of media if you are able to give them some help doing so. But at the same time traditional means of distribution are almost totally prohibitive for low- and no-budget entities. I think there that my experience would support Jocelyn’s point that publications not generated with traditional market or institutional props still need to be supported by some context in order to receive an audience, in order to get access to the people who want and can use them. So once again they are the end result of other work that perhaps needs to be more developed first.

Just one final thought on the larger context, also raised in the context of the discussion: at the end of the day, even if you believe in the book as book, do other people? It’s hard to comment on larger trends when they are so in flux, but I think that there are competing desires out there in the big world. Young people who are sick of industrial food are looking at food now with an eye for locality and craftsmanship, understanding that its production is as important as its availability. I sense that creating publications independently may— already has, for some of us-- come to occupy a similar place— a place that can transmit how ideas and craftsmanship in production are interwoven, a place that is somehow warmer than the cold interface of the screen.

Anyway, thanks much for giving me the space to share your thoughts back with you! I’m sure the discussion will continue. I look forward to seeing how it all continues to evolve…and to participating in some way if I can.