The Living Archives project is structured through parallel and complementary research strands: Performing Memory and Open Data. The aims and purpose of the project will be reflected in the theories, methods and implementation of each strand.
- Purpose and Aims
- Research Strands
- Research Strand: Performing Memory
- Research Strand: Open Data
- Research Methodologies
Both strands of research share a general critical and political orientation, but Performing Memory and Open Data will be elaborated with respect to specific conceptual and pragmatic concerns that reflect the disciplines involved. The Open Data research strand tends toward the technological and the Performing Memory toward the artistic and expressive, with Participatory Design practices and principles informing and shaping both research strands. Critical and analytical reflection from all researchers also unites both strands, with a strong base in cultural studies and in history and archival studies.
Shared concerns for both Performing Memory and Open Data include:
- the use of archive material (beginning with photographs, film/video, sound and radio from the City of Malmö);
- mobilizing the archive by moving it onto mobile platforms (mobile phones and other devices);
- planting archives in urban contexts;
- exploring how live data communicated by mobile devices might become instant archives.
The connections between Performing Memory and Open Data are what make this project unique: open data is needed to bridge official archive material and citizen participation (participation which is also seen to be performance). In other words, open data is a central building block for participatory, collaborative, crowdsourcing of archiving.
As the project progresses there will be increasing convergence between the strands through workshops and implementation. We intend for the Performing Memory and Open Data strands to enter into a reflexive relationship with each other in order to open up new perspectives based on this multidisciplinary research. In this way, we will both respect the rigour of the several disciplines involved at the same time as provide the ever-desired outcome of letting the collaboration across disciplines open up new perspectives and new knowledge. As the models and applications for Living Archives become available for testing and prototyping we will open up to material from other archives.