Documents, Archives and
Hyperhistorical Societies:
An Interview with Luciano Floridi1
arnoud glaudemans, rienk jonker and frans smit
EDITORS: Our book, the subject of this interview, contains several essays and/or
articles, mostly written by people from the archival community, some by people
from elsewhere. We named the book Archives in Liquid Times. It is a metaphor from
Umberto Eco, who got it from Zygmunt Bauman, a sociologist. This came from the
idea or feeling, that today we cannot and should not treat archives from a single
paradigm. Our times are way too dynamic for that. The idea of the book is to reflect
this dynamic state, and to give a sort of 'snapshot' of our situation. As a preparation
we sent you five questions with some clues about the topics we would like to address
in this interview.2
FLORIDI: The project of your book is very interesting. I remember our past
conversation.3 It is clearly a challenging time, not only for archives. We all know that
the analogue world is becoming increasingly digital. I can see that we (you editors
and I) belong to the same generation. We experienced the world when it was still
entirely analogue, the digital was not present yet. Then, in a matter of just a few
1 The interview was held on September 6th, 2017 at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).
2 The interview did not exactly follow the sequence of these questions. The questions were:
1. A proper, contemporary definition of records is given by Geoffrey Yeo in 2009: it now seems
appropriate to characterize records as persistent representations of activities or other occurrents, created by
participants or observers of those occurrents or by their proxies; or sets of such representations representing
particular occurrents. The elements of representing and keeping persistency in this definition points to a
functional approach instead of an approach where records are seen as material objects. Should the record-
based approach to the archive be replaced by this functional approach in terms of algorithmic processing?
Obviously, all digital information, including digital records, is processed algorithmically. Could the
impact on the archival function of the intrinsic, content-technical, effects of digital mediality (without
analog counterpart) be better accounted for from the functional approach?
2. As to data science: Can existing archival concepts, and the specific detailed archival knowledge they
entail, be (re-)used in the approach of algorithmic processing, to enhance and enrich the desired
functionality in this particular field? And which particular concepts would be relevant in this respect?
One could think of concepts like authenticity, provenance, and accessibility.
3. As to cultural criticism ('Kulturkritik'): Which function(s) should the archive and archival theory fulfil
today? It seems that historico-cultural criticism, in which the archive functions as a source, is becoming
increasingly obsolete and even counterproductive in a more and more post-historical society. Should
cultural criticism not be complemented by an account of the archival function within a critique of the
infosphere?
4. As to governmental accountability and control: Should the effects of the current and progressing
transition to the digital not be accounted for better, in order to avoid an increasingly diffuse allocation of
responsibility and distribution and execution of power? A lacking account of the impact of digitalisation
might thus have undesirable effects on democratic accountability. What are your views on this matter?
5. As to ethics: In what areas - as addressed in questions one to four - can ethics play a particularly vital and
guiding role? Especially, how do 'personal' or 'societal' ethics relate to (an account of) the institutional
changes as caused by the digital?
3 For the 2014 interview see: Glaudemans, A., Jonker R., Smit F. (2015).
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