Workshop: The future of the archives
Data visualiation workshop with Mar Canet at Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB).
This workshop and a round table were part of the presentation of the CCCB digital archive
“Archive sickness”: that is how the symptom suffered by modern western society has been described – registering, documenting, classifying and archiving in an attempt to safeguard memory against falling into oblivion. New technologies have enabled an unprecedented leap in this trend, since the volume of information we can store and disseminate grows by the day. Cultural institutions have not fallen behind in this process and, for a number of years now, the possibility of opening their archives to the public has been a key issue of public debate.
The CCCB has been working to digitalise its document library for over three years now and it can now be consulted in its entirety at the CCCB Archivefacilities, where everyone has access to the materials relating to the activities organised by the Centre’s foundation. Stemming from the completion of this process, this session proposes a debate on the future of archives, exploring several perspectives from web 3.0 and key issues regarding data architecture and visualisation to the actual meaning of saving and disseminating the knowledge created by cultural institutions through archives.
Workshop
We live in times of data and, especially, of organising and archiving data. A few years ago it used to be said that if something wasn’t on the net, it didn’t exist; and today we can state that if the data contained in a document have not been archived, the document does not exist either. In the same way, if adequate interfaces do not exist between the data and the individuals, the archive or library is not being put to good use.
Data visualisation is not just for displaying digital archives and libraries, exhibiting them or playing them. It also serves to multiply access, improve research and understand data gathering. In short, to transform data into knowledge.
At this workshop our challenge is to propose tools and methods for visualising digital archives in order to improve consultation options and make the content more accessible to the general public. The case study to be used for the workshop shall be the CCCB Archive.
