Archiving Care
https://www.neme.org/blog/archiving-care-call
Call for Participants
2-day Training school, (1-2 September 2024) in Limassol, Cyprus hosted by NeMe and co-organised by NeMe and Alessandro Ludovico.
Deadline to apply: 10pm CET, 12 August, 2024 (Successful applicants will be notified by 15 August)
Traditionally archives perform abstractions, suggest connections and compatibilities, and offer a perspective. It is however understood that archives are historically infected with politically dubious biases, patriarchal, colonial agendas, and represent ideological modes of control. “What is at issue here, […] is the violence of the archive itself, as archive, as archival violence.” 1 By extension, contemporary digital archives, “physically require the maintained, constant, continuous interaction of users. This is the political tragedy of interactivity. We are ‘treading water in the pool of liquid power,’ as Critical Art Ensemble once put it.” 2
Today, archiving is not restricted to artefacts kept behind locked doors but also digital data kept behind password protected firewalls. The increase of digital data, kickstarted the development of new big-data sciences but also the now ubiquitous AI technologies.
What does it mean to archive care? Does archiving re-enforce limitations of thought, interpretation, and/or action? Are archives by their nature biased? We ask these questions in the context of more and more demands on digital archives by new big data and AI technologies that corrupt one of the basic functional necessities of the archives, to document and preserve. Now, the new paradigm poses a contradiction for researchers who are expected to yield validated outputs and extends the function of the archive beyond its historical context, transforming it into tools that generate a-historical content that emulates fiction rather than accounted factual information. Tools that touch the surface and ignore the layers of meaning. Within this, the question lies on when have archives, and the information they contain, became mere abstracted data sets and ‘what’ rather than ‘how’ can we learn from such contemporary technologies that appear to be arbitrarily mixing heterogeneous data that are forced into relation that they did not hold before and merely emerges through the encounter with one another. So, how can archives be interpreted otherwise in their new degraded function in machine learning? Does the new operationality of the archive as a fusion of textual, photographic, and computational source require a new theoretical framing?
“Let us not begin at the beginning, nor even at the archive.
But rather at the word ‘archive’-and with the archive of so familiar a word. Arkhē, we recall, names at once the commencement and the commandment.” 3
For this COST funded training school we aim to return to the beginning and scrutinise methodologies of archiving, the specifics of data, database, content, and their use in AI.
We hope that the training school can serve as a basis for the development of alternative, radical ideas that transcend the dichotomy between physical and digital archives and critically introduce new ecologies of preserving, sharing, and utilising knowledge.
Seven applicants will be selected for this 2-day training school which aims to contribute to the discussion of digitalisation and care and seeks contributions from artists, data scientists, archivists, theorists, and researchers who have developed or are developing ideas, frameworks, and/or projects which consider ethical approaches on the subject. We especially encourage Young Researchers and Innovators under the age of 40, and individuals affiliated to COST Inclusiveness Target Countries (pdf) to apply. We will consider gender balance and geographical diversity in our selection.
What is expected
Each selected speaker will be expected to attend the full two day training school, deliver a 40’ talk, respond to 20’ Q&A, and contribute to the final round table discussion.
Who can apply?
Practitioners/researchers of any nationality or place of residency affiliated with an academic or other legal entity 4 in one of these countries: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, 5 Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Republic of North Macedonia, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine (government controlled territories), United Kingdom, as well as in one of the EU Member States Outermost Regions (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Saint-Martin, Azores and Madeira, and the Canary Islands).
International participants shall have their travel expenses reimbursed (up to €500 for long-distance travel – unless otherwise arranged with the organisers – and up to €204 per day daily allowance for approximately 3 days to cover for three nights accommodation and subsistence) according to COST travel reimbursement rules (pdf).
This training school is part of the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)-funded project: TOOLKIT OF CARE (TOC), CA21102.
About TOOLKIT OF CARE
TOOLKIT OF CARE (TOC) is an international project led by an interdisciplinary group of creative practitioners, academics, researchers, and arts organisations that specialise in creative technologies and have considerable experience in the production and dissemination of this kind of knowledge across Europe and internationally, who have come together to form a “critical network of care.” The network collaborates to share their collective expertise and technical knowledge employed in creative ways to develop knowledge and methodologies of care. The main aim is to produce a well formulated and integrated TOOLKIT OF CARE comprising articles, prototypes, audiovisual documentation, technical manuals, theoretical analysis, and data. It will act as a model of how to successfully share knowledge and expertise across different geographical regions and social groups.
Notes
- Jaques Derrida. Archive Fever. The University of Chicago Press, 1996
- Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker, The Exploit, University of Minnesota Press, 2007
- Jaques Derrida. Archive Fever. The University of Chicago Press, 1996
- A non-exhaustive list of examples of such an affiliation: work contract, enrolment in a PhD or Post-Doctoral programme, voluntary service in a NGO, and Emeritus professorship.
- Following the CSO decision of the 16 October 2023, considering the new guidance from the European Commission, as of 1 November 2023 until further notice, individuals from universities maintained by public interest trusts established under Hungarian Act IX of 2021 and concerned by the Council Implementation Decision 2022/2056 (see entities listed in Annex I of the Hungarian Act IX of 2021) are allowed to participate in COST activities without receiving financial support from the COST Association (either grants or via reimbursements). Individuals from the flagged institutions can apply to get funded via the Guarantee Fund established by the Hungarian government. The Hungarian Act IX of 2021) is available in Hungarian. You can use one of the web-based translation tools in order to get an English translation. A non-exhaustive list of the affected Hungarian legal entities is available on cost.eu/uploads/2023… -2056.pdf.
Application
Deadline expired.
To Apply, upload an abstract of your presentation proposal, a short bio, and CV in one pdf using the form below. Before posting your submission we recommend compressing the pdf document on ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf.
