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MEDIA AND THE ARCHIVE: Motions and Transformations

The Everyday Archive

This unit explores the term archive as it collides with the everyday. Everyday archives can be defined in a few different ways:

archives devoted to documenting, assembling, preserving everyday life (the quotidian) and lived moments that may not readily be considered archivable experiences
archives focused on underrepresented stories and lived experiences that are typically outside of the juridical realm of "the archive" as legitimized by national history or by the state
archives that we encounter on a daily basis: email, social networks, news sites, idea/content-sharing websites, and so on.

USC Microlibraries in the Everywhere

Readings

We will begin by taking a look at a 2013 In Media Res forum on "Everyday Archives," in which five individuals have curated pages dedicated to examining "everyday archives" from a variety of perspectives and fields.

Recommended:

Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers curated by Matt Delmont
Zooming into an Instagram city: reading the local through social media by Nadav Hochman and Lev Manovich
Just Me and Allah: A Queer Muslim Project by Samra Habib

As the In Media Res Call for Curators states,

Everyday we encounter massive amounts of information that is organized and synthesized by our smartphone apps, tumblr pages, and news aggregators. This week is interested in exploring the value of the term "archive" for describing our database culture. How does this term link us to a certain kind of intellectual history? This week is also focused on the ways digital archives shape our interpretation of different kinds of data, making even the most unwieldy data accessible and legible.

Possible topics include:
The archive as a tool for preservation and as a site of decay
The archive's function in defining race/gender/class
The archival impulse facilitated by websites like Pinterest, Tumblr, and Facebook
The archiving of archives by institutions like The Library of Congress

Key Questions

How would you define what "the everyday archive" is?
What are some qualities of an everyday archive?
What is the purpose of the archive you've chosen? What does it document and preserve?
What is "everyday" about this specific archive?
Why is it important to archive and document the everyday?
Is the archive serving a specific community, or for a larger public?
What important cultural/social/political purposes does this archive achieve (or try to achieve)?
How does this archive blur the boundaries between "the everyday" and "the archive"?

Reflections

Everyday archives could happen unintentionally: at times without the purpose of becoming an archive
Role of the capacity of digital storage in the proliferation of everyday archives
The "who" gets emphasized; everyday archives are often community-driven
The imaginative and creative power of everyday archives (element of hope?)
Collision between public and private spheres

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When is a library not a library? How can the design of a space shape the experience of interacting with information? Microlibraries in the Everywhere, a collaboration between the USC Libraries and USC School of Architecture, features 8 microlibraries, scattered among the University Park and Health Sciences campuses. These structures contain unique and freely available collections of books and other materials, functioning as pieces of sculptural public art, vessels of authoritative information, and sites of curated knowledge that interact with the history and current communities of inquiry located across campus. https://libraries.usc.edu/exhibitions/microlibraries-everywhere

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A piece from the 2016 USC Microlibraries in the Everywhere Exhibit. When is a library not a library? How can the design of a space shape the experience of interacting with information? Microlibraries in the Everywhere, a collaboration between the USC Libraries and USC School of Architecture, features 8 microlibraries, scattered among the University Park and Health Sciences campuses. These structures contain unique and freely available collections of books and other materials, functioning as pieces of sculptural public art, vessels of authoritative information, and sites of curated knowledge that interact with the history and current communities of inquiry located across campus. https://libraries.usc.edu/exhibitions/microlibraries-everywhere