Notes from/dev/null
2017; Routledge; Volume: 1; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/24701475.2017.1307059
ISSN2470-1483
Autores Tópico(s)Photography and Visual Culture
ResumoI will discuss the digital materials that we do not want to archive, or that do not want to be archived, that are particular to Internet history: the trash, cruft, detritus and intentionally opaque hoard of documents and artefacts that constitute our digital middens. Middens are pits of domestic refuse filled with the discards and by-products of material life: the gnawed bones, ashes, fruit stones and potsherds, shells and chips and hair and drippings which together constitute the photographic negative of a community in action and an invaluable record for archaeologists. Using this analogy, I will discuss two from my own research: the archives of spam, which we would all rather forget, and the records of the communities and marketplaces of the so-called “Dark Web,” which would prefer to be forgotten. I will also address the challenges of research with other kinds of eccentric, troubling or speculative archives, like blockchains, ephemeral imageboards and doxxes. I will close by discussing ways that we can think of digital historiography, in particular, in terms of these accidental, unwanted, averse archives.
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