The Added Value of Archiving for Design and Digital Culture The Added Value of Archiving for Design and Digital Culture

For designers and makers curious about how archives can provide inspiration for new work, or who want to start their own, two practitioners reflect on the role of archiving in their own work and organisations, and share tips for setting up archives. Arie Altena is an editor and researcher at V2_ Lab for Unstable Media, and Roosje Klap is founder of design studio ARK (Atelier Roosje Klap), and co-head of the Graphic Design (BA) and Non-Linear Narrative (MA) departments at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague.

"When I look at my own mechanisms and work processes," says Klap, "I often start a new project with an investigation of what came before it. What is it that made a certain architect or designer's project successful, and, above all, why? For example, for a commission from the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, I investigated the Wiener Werkstätte Archive (housed at the MAK in Vienna) whose designs were based on firm dogmas that helped to create stylistic characteristics typical of their work. I was curious about the process that led to these philosophies - how did they determine what was allowed and what it should or should not look like?"

"Other examples that provide insight into a process are the letters that De Stijl members wrote to one another, sometimes containing heated accusations that seem at odds with the collective's neat interplay of lines. Mondrian cancelled his De Stijl membership by letter - "It's over! Schizophrenic!" he wrote to Van Doesburg. Insight into the process and context in which a style has come into being provides inspiration for my own practice. By making the move to the modern, the digital, and by adding my own use of letters and colours, I then build on a tradition".

Klap continues, "We also try to teach KABK students the added value of research in archives for the development of their own practice. For example, KABK makes trips to the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague to teach students about archive research by bringing them to it directly, but we also have a very special library of our own. Another example is that, in 2017, I went on a study trip to Iran with our students and artist-designer Job Wouters to study the role of 'the ornament' in contemporary society. Preparations started in the Netherlands with a symposium at the Artis Library in which we discussed the subject with several guests, and we were allowed to view the beautiful engravings in books about caravans in the archives. In this way, going back to the source not only commands respect but also allows students to realise that archival research can deepen their practice."

As editor of the V2_ archive, Arie Altena also sees that discovering context is an added value of archives. "Voyages of discovery in the V2_ archives often start with a search for something specific. The archive allows you to discover the context around that thing, and shows you what kind of constellation a work has created. Think of programme booklets, descriptions, organisers' comments - these enable you to form an image of a moment in history from the perspective of V2_. This is an important nuance because we don't conserve art - you'll find an archive about V2_, its development over the years, and this, then, says something about the development of technology and digital culture as a whole."

The V2_ archive not only provides context, but also serves as a source of inspiration for the organisation itself. Altena talks about the Manifesto for unstable media from 1987 that formed the basis for the creation of V2_. "The manifesto is a wonderful example. Over the years it's provided inspiration within the organisation, and the activities of V2_ around that time have a magnetic effect because every new generation of curators is drawn back to it."

Beyond inspiration and the discovery of context, there is the possibility of using contemporary resources to reinterpret work created in the past. Altena explains, "The Re-enactment Residency, for which V2_ collaborates with In4Art, is a concrete example of this. Artist Marnix de Nijs reinterpreted a work from the past and translated it with the resources that we have available now."

Klap adds, "Recently, in collaboration with visual artist and Rijksakademie alumnus Kévin Bray, I designed a collage for the window of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in The Hague. Among the source materials were 72dpi photographs, which we improved with the help of artificial intelligence. In this way, for example, technology actually became a co-creator of the work because it added pixels to the original photo that was once taken on a flip phone."

The added value of archives for the future development of the design discipline and its practices is clear, whether it is your own or someone else's. Yet, what steps can a designer, maker, studio, or organisation take to start an archive? Klap and Altena are united in their key advice; Klap says that you should "Set up the structure of your archive in such a way that someone else can take over". Altena adds, "Save what you create or do in such a way that people will still be able to understand what it is in 20 years' time. For example, I contributed to a publication by Telcosystems on the 12_Series project that contains essays about the work, an interview, technical drawings, and more. You get a good idea of the reasons why the work was made, but also the practical side such as the technology and how it works."

Ensuring that your output can be understood by others - now or in the future - starts with a well-organised working process that creates an interaction between practice and archive. Klap says, "Once you archive, you have fun working neatly. After a while it's suddenly possible to look back at your own work from 10 years ago and discover some pearls, which then nourishes your new work. In order to increase findability, a good categorisation of everything you store is important. If everything is called 'sketch', it will no longer be found in search engines, so think about a good folder structure and coding for your digital archive that's specific enough. Also, make sure unfinished versions are given a place, for example in an 'old' folder. Speak strictly to yourself - make clear choices on what you keep and delete to avoid digital static - and you'll have enough time to reflect by archiving your work as it happens."

The risk of digital static increases in the case of collaborations, as Klap explains. "In 2014, we set up the Design Displacement Group (DDG) with around 15 graphic designers from all over the world. Together, we wanted to investigate what graphic design actually entails, and we kept an archive of the process. When I recently wrote an article about DDG, I discovered a lot of digital static that came with it. In finding out what was essential and what wasn't, I was able to interpret incomplete notes and minutes made during the process using interviews and help from a curator."

The V2_ archive is part of its website, the structure of which is at the same time the categorisation. Altena explains: "The website shows what V2_ does, has done, what we've developed, and what information is available about it. After first working with separate archival and PR websites, it was finally decided to merge everything into one site. This resulted in a simple data structure that leads with what we digitally archive - events, weather forecasts, people, organisations, media, and articles."

Choices are part of the daily work process at V2_ - "I make decisions in the moment about what to archive and what not to." Around the turn of the century, it had already been decided that the archive was to be digital, making it more easily accessible, says Altena. "When the V2_ archive came into being, it was immediately decided - the archive is digital. That's the future and anyone with an internet connection has access to the material. When people start working for or with V2_, it's now very nice that material is immediately available. We see this during the Summer Residencies, where artists develop a prototype in two months. In the guidance and conversations we have with them, the archive is involved again and again. How deep someone wants to dive into it differs for every artist and moment - one artist may want the technical drawings, but for another a video is enough inspiration."

The fact that it is mainly about the digital storage of information does not mean that the analogue archive has completely disappeared. Rather, it says something about the working process that, in contrast to correspondence of the past, is increasingly digital. Klap says, "I keep several copies of the end results - three copies of books and two copies of posters in storage cupboards in the attic of the studio. My digital archive is stored with Dropbox, which is carefully combed out and rearranged after completion of each assignment". Altena adds, "In addition to the website and internal archive server, V2_ still has cabinets with boxes and folders containing sheets of paper, diskettes, and CD-ROMs. It sometimes happens that PhD students make use of these for their research if the digital archive doesn't go into sufficient depth."

When more and more designers and digital culture makers start keeping archives themselves, the concept of a distributed network of archives emerges. In addition to the tips that Klap and Altena provide from their own experience, the publication Save As... - Basic rules for digital preservation offers practical tips. Furthermore, 'archiving by design' is on the rise as a method for organising working processes in such a way that archiving becomes easier.

Finally, in the context of digital culture archives, there is the idea of the 'community of care'. The academic Annet Dekker inspired Michel van Dartel, director of V2_, to cite the concept in an interview in the context of the exhibition Speculative Design Archive. Digital culture is characterised by the immaterial - such as interactions and relationships between people - and these are better preserved when the community involved in the development and production of a work (and has the passion to keep the work alive) also takes care of preserving it, hence 'community of care.'

Added together, these practical tips and ideas provide the tools for individuals or communities to create an archive and take care of it. This then enables new generations of designers and digital culture makers to build on the past by gaining insight into processes and context that have led to inspiring, iconic works.

Text: Twan Eikelenboom