https://theartofappropriation.wordpress.com/

Here is the link to my final project

I especially like the word Susan Howe used in the title- “telepathy”, which makes me think of the intimate bond between the archives and people. According to Susan Howe, “this visionary spirit, a deposit from a future yet to come, is gathered and guarded in the domain of research libraries and special collections”. Though we have to admit the fact that some items are destined to be forgotten in this age, the archives that present a vision into the future make themselves come to life. Beyond the words, it seems like a romantic idea that the archives have already corresponded with each other before people get to them. I think to some extent Susan Howe’s experience of being a poetic helps building up this sense of romance in the domain of archive and collection. She also points out that “in research libraries and collections, we may capture the portrait of history in so-called insignificant visual and verbal textualities and texiles”. In this sense, I think the archival items and documents with small pieces, like some fragments presented in Spontaneous Particulars The Telepathy of Archives, are associated by complex human emotions and thoughts, which is another method to scrutinize the past history in a detailed way. Some of the fragments can’t even provide a complete context for viewers to read through. But once they are put together within a certain logic by the author, a relation of affinity is formed and the “historical-existential trace” is to be tracked by the sense of romance among the archives. Rather than considering the archives as objects lying in the archive or library, waiting to be explored, readers are able to get a glimpse of the link between the past and future the archives and let the archives take charge of leading the way into a more profound research. For me, this idea is way more intriguing than the serious and professional archival approaches I’ve seen before.

In the chapter The Disappearance Approach, Susan talks about “relations between sounds and objects, feelings and thoughts, develop by association; language attaches to and envelopes its referent without destroying or changing it”. It makes me think about the disorder and distortion generated by the fragments. When I was making my audio appropriation I also came across the similar problem that though the original sources remain the untouched, but once I make intervention and appropriate the clips by my idea, the audio fragments became totally different. I can’t help thinking that how does the disorder affect the intimate relation and our thoughts in terms of understanding and analyzing the fragments? How does it change the way we view the “historical-existential trace”?

This audio is made up  of 6 tracks that are extracted from three pieces of news reports. The short piece of music in the beginning sounds like an intro of a news program and it corresponds to the big booming noise in the end.   The speech by a NASA leader and the applauding sound are intervened between the news reported by anchors. I rearrange the six clips with a new order, which presents a connection among the tracks that are originally unrelated.

Like the shooting techniques that discussed in Baron’s The Archive Effect, Hardy also brings the recording technology that helps uncover the history that may be forgotten long ago. Hardy makes a repeated mention of “audio art” that develops from “shattered radio, phonograph record, audiocassette, and CD into an expanding option of new media”. These techniques skills disseminated for decades have greatly affected the development of oral history. But after I finish listening to the “Regan speaks for himself”, I start to doubt whether there is a gap between the appropriated audio track and research of the real history. In this track, obvious repetition and pauses are appropriated, which makes me doubt whether the producer of this audio is trying to stress something on purpose. The appropriated part will definitely impacts on people’s different understanding of this history. In the words under the audio track, it says that this audio is made of two versions from different time period of Regan. This kind of mixture definitely helps present one possible understanding of history in that period, but how can I tell whether the “one possible understanding” is getting closer to the real history? What if it is made out of some reasons that will distort the true story? I think I’d prefer to hear the original versions of each audio track, which make me feel more persuasive.

I agree with Hardy argument that “Audio art and oral history have a natural affinity. Storytelling and reminiscence, as we oral historians repeatedly intone, are by their nature aural forms” (58). In the “This Car to the Ballpark”, it seems that extra sound effect of melodies is embedded into the audio track, which offers the listeners to look into the perception of aesthetic in terms of audio art. For those who barely have any history knowledge, the audio art sounds fascinating and attracting. But in the perspective of history research, I still believe that it may somewhat affect our interpretation to the reality when we are trying to get a glimpse back into the history.

Apart from the consideration for authentic and professional research, I actually like the idea of preserving the history orally. Hardy mentions that “Oral history interviews are performative, and each person’s vocalizations-language, accent, intonation, sonority, cadence, tonality, vocabulary-the whole complex symphony of verbal expression”. It strikes me that there is a crossing point of art and history. Imaging people acting themselves in an audio arena and murmuring the old stories in a mysterious and personal way, by which the invisible memory is transformed to the material that can be preserved ever since.

The inspiration of this collage comes from a book of world’s greatest oil paintings I read before. On the left of the top is the original version of The Scream. Later I find some interesting pictures that derive from The Scream and make them into a composite image. I’ve tried to extract the character who’s screaming from each picture and paste them all onto the original one, but it turns out to be a little bit disordered and weird. So I just put them into a sequence and see what I can get from this collage.

This painting, which is part of a series of paintings done by Munch, has always been interpreted as a symbol of human emotion in relation to expressing despair, anxiety and agony in various ways. The distortion of the figure and color can be easily spotted in the top left picture which is originally a counterfeit. In the second row and third row, things become much different. I think these interesting pictures have already been more or less photoshoped by someone else. By viewing them, I have a feeling that the consolidated interpretation of desperate human emotion is falling apart and something of postmodernism can be mixed into the understanding as well. Like, the first and the third in the second row are mocking politics to some extent; the cute one, at least I think so, in the middle seems like a droll conversation between two great powers in a certain field. Pictures in the third row are much more diverse in the colors and figures. They offer a subtle blend of cartoon, Pop art and popular Emoji with the famous painting.

Baron restates Derrida’s argument in her book that “archives are structured according to the logics of power that determine which objects are preserved stored, and revered and which are excluded, thereby creating the past rather than simply preserving it”. It reminds me that apart from the impressive symbolization of human surviving, The Scream also represent a power of art that people tend to respect for the most part, but there are still many who’d love to make something new out of it. I think this process is in accord with the archive effect in terms of reforming the archival document “as an experience of reception rather than an indication of official sanction or storage location”. Now I find myself more affected by this collage in an interesting way of being attracted and fascinated rather than the “feeling of loss”.

I have created a short clip from a footage Doctor in Industry in the Prelinger Archive.  Instead of overlapping the images, I select five scenarios from the video and integrate them into one short clip. Each of them lasts about 5-8 seconds and forms different angles of viewing the story. At first sight, viewers may find it difficult to understand this short clip, but as Baron argues in chapter 4: “the film acts as a succession of encounters and interruptions that are only tentatively held together by the delicate narrative thread of the narrator’s reflexive meditations” (118), it seems that, to some extent, the narrators’ reflections of a video clip come from not only the completeness of a storytelling but also the fragments of a story that shape viewer’s thoughts in a figurative sense.

This clip covers different parts of a certain history of industrial medicine in the first half of the 20th century, consisting of an introduction in the beginning which, I think, makes it like a traditional movie, a love story of a doctor at that time, the doctor’s behavior in the hospital, the scenery of a hospital and the communication between doctors. Though these are just fragments extracted from a footage film, they still, in my opinion, picture the lives in the past as a whole. I end the clip where the doctors are talking and as a viewer, I’m still curious about what they are talking about and how the story will develop in the next step. It represents the idea of the footage are both explicitly about memory and culture, which“…not only enacts the desire to turn archival fragments into a narrative but also suggests that certain fragments can never be contained by a story”(118).

I’m also considering the idea of “gap” discussed by Baron who argues that“…such a gap in the archive visible may give rise not only to intellectual acknowledgement of how the archive effect can be simulated but also to an intensified experience of the archive affect, the overwhelming sense of time’s passage and of all that has been irrevocably lost to the present”(121). In my understanding, the gap which exists in footages between narrating and meditating generates the “history desire” to explore the past and present among all the fragments. In this sense, looking into those gaps makes it more interesting than just sitting there and watching appropriation.

Baron’s The Archive Effect has kept me considering something about the home mode movies of both audiovisual archive and private collection senses. On page 82, Baron defines the effects of home mode movies as “…the presence of such documents in appropriation films may represent a democratizing of history and contribute to public knowledge about or experience of past events by including traces of otherwise unknown individuals into histories that previously accounted only for those who held the most social and political power”. This definition, I think, exactly describes the meaning and the function of home mode documents. It also reminds me of the concept of reformulating these home mode documents with the sense of temporal disparity. In this sense, instead of being narrated officially and authoritatively as traditional archives, it is true that the footage and audiovisual appropriations, recording individual’s daily lives in the simple ways, not only reveal the democratic spirits but also visualize the life and society in the past.

Many now use smartphones or cameras to record their lives for various purposes, but once those private movies made by themselves are debunked in public no matter with or without their will, I think there will be some certain ethical issues even though the movies are just used by the professionals for academic or archival purpose. Baron also raised a similar question: “What are the ethical implications of using home mode documents in public texts?” (82). I think it’s hard to answer. Obviously, these footage and appropriations are precious and valuable for us to look back in public texts, but it also involves privacy problems and seems like “a voyeuristic peek into other people’s private lives”. Thus, the status of home mode documents will definitely change when they appear in different texts.

Another thing I’m also considering is how to understand properly while watching appropriation films, like The Maelstrom: A Family Chronicle. Someone may feel a little bit confused about what is going on, if he or she barely has a good knowledge of the history in 1930s. I have no idea whether someone else feels this way, but I do. It seems like when watching the more authoritative archival films, say, BBC documentaries, I  usually have a fairly clear purpose for what I am watching, why I watch these or what I am supposed to do after watching, but after watching The Maelstrom: A Family Chronicle, I am a little lost. Baron discusses the“video confession”, a kind of appropriated confessional video footage, which may present more complex human emotions. I’m curious about the reaction by somebody who watch it. Will he or she feel lost as I do? I assume these reactions, such as getting lost, feeling nervous or awkward, are probably parts of archival voyeurism.

The term “unruliness” is reiterated in the outset of this book, I can’t help thinking that is there any boundaries between the private footage collection and the archival appropriations? Is it necessary that some rules be established to make a clear distinction between the private and the public? If so, what will happen to the footage and audiovisual experiences in terms of archival effect?

I have to say that I was not intend to do the train tickets collection at first until later I saw some interesting photos of train tickets in the past. It suddenly occurred to me that I can collect train tickets in different time periods and make an archive of them. Those tickets of different countries have their own characteristics and reveal the history and the development of railway technology. I’d love to look into different designs of train tickets all over the world and various stories behind these tickets. I find out that many people just throw the tickets away after they finish their trip, but if we can keep all the tickets recording where we’ve been and where we’re going, I believe that will be a wonderful experience.

The collection mainly consists of photos, taken from Google and social networks, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as others and all the original links and related information of these photos will be noted. This TRAIN TICKETS COLLECTION is categorized into three time periods: 1890s to1970s, 1970s to 2000s and from 2000s till now. The images of train tickets are shared by people all around the world. This collection offers a way of scrutinizing the past and present. The patterns and designs of some tickets change a lot over centuries, but the basic information, like date, departure time, name of the holder and destination, etc. are always included. The size of some tickets are really small, while others are apparently not. Many people love to share their trips and document their tickets on social networks, which have become an essential part in the process of collecting the tickets. This archive allows viewers not only to accumulate their memories, but also to examine the evolution of train tickets and the history in the past.

http://trainticketscollection.tumblr.com/

While reading Aasamn’s Saving Private Reels, I’m interested in the four successive archival frameworks: archive relating to the state-an institution of power; archive representing a more historical perspective on the nature of records; archive reflecting society more than before in all its pluralism, diversity, contingent nature; archive collecting documents about the inner life of people. The archives, though evolving separately from raw materials to digital memories in these four different stages, reveal themselves in a way of embracing the four frameworks together with the help of modern technology. The definitions by UNESCO that explains the considerations about the moving images as an archiving tool impressed me a lot as well. The technology has made it possible for films and videos to establish the cultural identity of the public and to “form an integral part of a nation’s cultural heritage”. Storing the moving images, as an important part of digital memory, has reconstructed the way we record our history and culture and built up a new form to voice for the ideas and thoughts not only by professional archivists but also by ourselves, which seems like a victory of “democratic spirit”.

What Ernst has discussed is thought-provoking for me: “…the technology is not an archive”, for “Net archives are a function of their software and transmission protocols rather than of content, to which technology is indifferent” (Ernst). Actually, Aasam also comes up with the similar idea that“…further consideration should be given to recent shifts in memory recording practice and memory archiving practice”. On social network, like Facebook, YouTube or Instagram, people prefer to upload audio or video record to track their lives, which are much more vivid and direct than texts, but not all of these records, in my opinion, can’t be regarded as archive, for a certain number of videos are uploaded just out of personal preference and interest. Only by collecting in a logical and technological way, can these self-made multimedia become a rich resource for researchers.

Aasman argues that films go through a long time shifting from collectible items to archives, during which people need to “be willing to hand over their personal material, and archives” and “be willing to accept intimate images that may directly represent public historical events”. It is true that we have to face these problems, while posting the videos of ourselves. Basic historical perspectives on archives and technology skills are both needed in order to better archive the history we live through. My understanding is that it seems that there is still a long way to go to achieve the goal of “archive now makes itself responsible for safekeeping our culture and identity ‘and personal and collective memory” by Aasman, which is presumed to be a whole new dynamic concept of archives.

I’m curious about Ernst’s words “the archival regime is being extended from text to audiovisual data…this extension changes and dissolves the very nature of the archival regime”, which inspires me to reconsider the “nature of archival regime”: namely, does this kind of nature really exist in spite of the developing method of archive? Or the nature of archival regime change itself as time goes by?

At first I was intrigued by the “forgetting and remembering” theory by Tompson that memory plays better in getting the gist rather than in the specific details of what we try to remember. Though the every single detail seldom makes sense of anything that helps us understanding the world. “…but we lose everything else, in particular discarding the details that don’t fit our predetermined biases” (Tompson, 24). What happens to the details we have ignored? Are those details, as well as the gists, of the same importance in helping establish the universe we observe?

Once the details are well kept by technology as part of our memory for lifelong, the memories becomes active and digitalized instead of passive or insignificant. Lifeloggers provide us a glimpse into how to save and use detailed memory in a digital age. Think about this image: if you are in need of some details of a certain event happened in the past, you are able to extract whatever you want from the large amount of the data base created for recording. It seems like your memories never lapse, which sounds really cool to me. In fact the “lifelog” has influenced the world we live to some extent. Apart from the traditional way of writing diary, the website: http://lifelogger.com/ already make it available to record your everyday life by videos. All you need is a smartphone or a camera. On a basic level, the information age offering us various ways to achieve the goal of tracking every fragment in our daily lives has shaped the world we are exploring into.

These personal archiving activities, though seem to have a long way to go, can be perceived to reveal the uniqueness of one’s life. “Collecting was seen as part of a quest for personal meaning” (Cox, 5); “collecting may somehow extend from our desires to survive, connected to the hunting of other essential necessities for sustaining life” (Cox, 3).  In this sense, recording or collecting the details of everyday life does an important role in building up the self-identification. Collections have become firmly related to the memory of socioculture by which the individual impacts on archive reconstruct.

However, the quintessential dilemma is that, though the digital records, including website information, audio and videos, seem to be under the control of the lifeloggers, the fact that nobody can live with incessantly recording every trifle in our daily life is worthy of considering. There will always be sometime that is embarrassing and we are never willing to keep in mind in our lifetime. How can we deal with this kind of awkward situation? Furthermore, since the lifeloggers become a new trend in personal archive, how will privacy security during the data collecting be achieved? Are archive activities going to be a sort of professional expertise or the personal habit out of interest in the future?