Memory and Media Archival Tasks in the Age of Algorithms

Indeed, archives are in a crisis. Rather than lamenting it, we should explore the emancipatory potential of this crisis and assess how it is anchored in technological changes. Institutions like archives, libraries, museums and galleries (the GLAM-sector) were not built for new media. Yet, as concepts they are on everybody’s lips. Whenever we talk about how new media can store and display information, these concepts reappear as metaphors. Can the institutions themselves live up to their conceptual and metaphorical mobilizations? Can modern media ultimately make the sector bolder in terms of innovation, research, articulation and curation as well as consolidate a new type of public service model strengthening artistic creativity and sharing?
To do this, we need to change some of our habits of thinking.