The Archive in Motion.

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Under the headline The Archive in Motion we will investigate the ways in which archival concepts and practices have been transformed under the impact of the radical changes in writing and recording technologies that have taken place over the last century, and particularly with the introduction of digital technologies. Film, video, television, sound recording and computers seem to have instigated a general storage-mania and a proliferation of both public and private archival practices. Yet these technologi es also challenge traditional notions of the permanence and stability of the archival document and open onto a whole range of new questions concerning what exactly it means to store information for future use. This project studies what happens when an old er storage practice encounters a new media culture based on permanent transfer and immediate access. Major archives and libraries all around the world struggle to navigate between radical technological shifts and the gradual extinction of older media. The member institutions of the largest archive and library federations, IFLA and FIAF, - including the National Library of Norway, one of the collaborating institutions of this project - have launched several initiatives to investigate the challenges of our cultural heritage in a digital age. The project aims to produce historical and theoretical reflection on various aspects of these challenges, and will investigate the shift towards archival mobilization through a series of case studies focusing on the way in which new archival problems present themselves in relation to three major modern media technologies: film and photography, video and televisual technologies and computers and algorithmic technologies. Broadly formulated, an integration of social memor y studies, media archaeological approaches and media aesthetics will form the project's theoretical and methodological basis.