The Archive, the Media, the Map and the Text
Rudolf Frieling

The artists ‹free› the images as much as the words of their original referential and indexical format to that of an original order, such that the new sense of order opens a new mode of reading. The generative nature of the text apparatus and the logic of the library (as storage space of all referential structures) transform the archive into a producer and into an archive of potential texts. From this perspective the data based archive presents itself no longer as a passive storage space, but rather as a place of action. Talk of a ‹storage› of knowledge is misleading since the case is rather that of a ‹generator› of knowledge. This essay deals with image storage and text processes, with data-mining and data-visualization, with maps and the impossible cartography of the world, that is to say with artistic and theoretical aspects of a dynamic, data based culture. [more]

The archive and the availability of knowledge Configuring knowledge Conditions of knowledge Distributing knowledge Databases as a cultural form Universal image store Era of image exchange Mapping text and image Mapping text Mapping images Mapping as data display Alternative displays Mapping stategies Mapping as a collective process The big picture Data-mining and the dynamic archive