This is a fantastic read. I'm curious what your process was for hosting and condensing the symposium; the contributions of wendi, isaac, ruby, and chris are grippingly intense. Is there a longer transcription of the conversations floating around? I would love to read it.
Glad you enjoyed, Sam. There's not much more to add as far as the process for these short pieces goes: I asked all four of them to contribute to a shared Google doc. But all of them have been thinking about versions of this question for a while, and I've gotten to be in the room for some of their thinking: I spent last summer alongside Wendi as she worked on her Arctic art, which focuses on geologic timespans, Isaac has been pursuing an Amazonian research project for several months, Ruby has been thinking in public about the character of memory in an internet age for longer than I've known him, and Chris and I enjoyably squabbled about the lost dialogues earlier this year. And I was set off on this trail by Jon Askonas last year.
Some questions that popped up for me reading this: How do we know what is worth preserving? How can we know which present-day things will slip through the archive, to the deep consternation of future generations? What is the "historical record" anyway?!
Love these. Feel like several of our internet friends are especially interested in this kind of archive-preserving work in digital spaces. I hadn't realized how much of the fundament of digital life is vulnerable to link rot etc.
This is a fantastic read. I'm curious what your process was for hosting and condensing the symposium; the contributions of wendi, isaac, ruby, and chris are grippingly intense. Is there a longer transcription of the conversations floating around? I would love to read it.
Glad you enjoyed, Sam. There's not much more to add as far as the process for these short pieces goes: I asked all four of them to contribute to a shared Google doc. But all of them have been thinking about versions of this question for a while, and I've gotten to be in the room for some of their thinking: I spent last summer alongside Wendi as she worked on her Arctic art, which focuses on geologic timespans, Isaac has been pursuing an Amazonian research project for several months, Ruby has been thinking in public about the character of memory in an internet age for longer than I've known him, and Chris and I enjoyably squabbled about the lost dialogues earlier this year. And I was set off on this trail by Jon Askonas last year.
Some questions that popped up for me reading this: How do we know what is worth preserving? How can we know which present-day things will slip through the archive, to the deep consternation of future generations? What is the "historical record" anyway?!
Love these. Feel like several of our internet friends are especially interested in this kind of archive-preserving work in digital spaces. I hadn't realized how much of the fundament of digital life is vulnerable to link rot etc.
Incredible article. One of the bests i’ve read here. Thanks
The future cares about the past