Digitally stored records must always be processed to become available. The activity
of pushing a button and thereby executing one or more algorithms, is essentially
different from going to the repository and taking the file from the shelf (Flusser,
2014, p. 31). Time-binding systems will produce persistent representations by
processing data and offering available, accessible and authenticated, records.
Another consideration is that with the disappearance of physicality of the object the
difference between an original and a copy may have become obsolete. Walter
Benjamin wrote about the difference between the mastertape and the copies that
were distributed for use in cinemas in "the age of reproduction". The auratic quality
of the masters, according to Benjamin, made them more authentic than the copies
(Benjamin, 2009, p. 233). In a digital world there is not such a thing as an original
or a copy anymore. You only have results of the processing of data that constitute the
record. The record exists when it is used, and it withdraws once the process of using
the record is completed. Its components: the data, will be put together by algorithms
again when there is a new need for using the record. Where there is no original,
there is no copy either. So, unlike the human beings of Lionel Trilling in the opening
paragraph: no digital record will be born original and die a copy.
It seems that we cannot talk of objects on the level of abstraction like we used to in a
world where information is fixed on analog carriers. Still, when we assume that an
authentication of records needs something that can be called an "object" then we
might turn to stratification strategies, as for example Nikolai Hartmann proposed
(Störig, 2010, p. 592-593). The idea that an object consists of a series of layers is
well-known, for example in network and communication protocols. The various
layers in a digital environment, like the bitstream, the coding needed to interpret the
bitstream, the content, the form, the internal functions, the internal structure, the
format and the means and ways of presentation, constitute the object together. If all
these strata are preserved convincingly enough for the authenticator and the
informed, then we might speak of the processing of an authentic digital record.
The record in a digital environment, being the result of data processing, is often not
located in one place. It is often not managed by one manager, not authenticated by
one authenticator. It can take an enormous amount of different shapes. In cloud
environments, the data are scattered and moved around every second on a global
scale. Records are literally everywhere and nowhere. They appear as results of data
processing and they withdraw again once they have been used, and they will be
processed again whenever they are needed.
The Records Continuum and the Hyperobject
Thinking in lifecycles is a common way of thinking about records in a wide array of
disciplines. Floridi has used the lifecycle model as well (Floridi,2010, p. 4-5).
However, in archival theory it has become a commonly accepted view since the
1990-ies that lifecycle concepts do not longer suffice as a basis for analysing the
creation, the organisation and the use of records. Continuum thinking, as in the
Records Continuum model has become a dominant conceptual framework.
According to Upward, the Records Continuum Model has the following starting-
points:
"1. A concept of 'records' which is inclusive of records of continuing value
archives), which stresses their uses for transactional, evidentiary and
memory purposes, and which unifies approaches to archiving/recordkeeping
whether records are kept for a split second or a millennium;
2. A focus on records as logical rather than physical entities, regardless of
whether they are in paper or electronic form;
3. Institutionalization of the recordkeeping profession's role requires a
particular emphasis on the need to integrate recordkeeping into business and
societal processes and purposes." (Upward, 1996, p. 4-5)
The Records Continuum Model implies that we might fully understand, analyse and
control the context and content of records. To understand issues of authenticity of
records in a digital environment, we might rethink this claim of records. A helpful,
new perspective is offered in ecological philosophy, especially by Timothy Morton.
Morton, who is a member of the object-oriented philosophy movement, argues that
it is philosophically sound to think in terms of "hyperobjects". These are objects that
exist beyond the possibility of humans to perceive. They are too massively distributed
in spacetime. According to Morton it is necessary to think in this kind of concepts to
understand major ecological developments like climate change. The concept has not
been applied to ecological issues only. For example, it has been used by the Dutch
philosopher René ten Bos (2015) to gain a deeper understanding of a very different
subject: bureaucracy. In this spirit I will try to apply Morton's concept of
hyperobjects to records.
According to Morton, hyperobjects are so vast that human beings are not capable to
oversee and comprehend them. It is impossible to get a grip on them. Human beings
are immersed in them. Parts of the hyperobject may be revealed but human beings
are not capable to grasp them in full: "It is as if we were inside a gigantic octopus"
(Ten Bos, 2015, p. 36-37).
Records can be considered nowadays a part of a hyperobject consisting of digital data
and information. Whole societies are immersed in digital data and have become
dependent from them. Nobody will be able to oversee all the data that are created
and managed by for example the Internet of Things and peer-to-peer technologies.
Every human being, every machine and even every network will only get partial and
temporal glimpses of this digital information.
According to Morton (2012) hyperobjects share five properties. I will try to apply
them to a digital environment:
1. The first one is viscosity: hyperobjects stick to us, no matter how hard we try
to resist. Nobody will be able to avoid the influence of digital data and
records. It is mainly a one-way direction: the hyperobject influences your
life, and your influence is very restricted. There is a massive number of
examples on how digital data, including digital records, are used and
re-used and thus involuntarily influencing everyone's.
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