from my private space into the public space, to be received by others in their
own private space. The essential difference of the discursive and the dialogical,
as described by Flusser, is that the latter presumes a live, two-way, feedback by
means of direct linkage in the same space. This is the case in our daily use of
digital media (e.g., click, swipe, etc.). The fact that we are sender and receiver
at the same time, in the same space, implies that the discursive distinction of
public and private tends to disappear: keys have burst the boundaries
between private and public. They have blended political with private space and
made all inherited conceptions of discourse ['Diskurs'] superfluous." (Flusser
2011 [1985], p. 30)
IV. A Reinterpretation of Derrida in Light of Flusser
14. We will now turn to a reinterpretation of Derrida's conception of the archive
by means of the concepts and distinctions described in the previous section,
which aimed to outline Flusser's account of the specifics of digital mediality
and its main characteristics, as well as its differences from analog mediality.
In our view, it is to be expected that these differences have a major impact on
nature, function, and position of the archive. In this section, we will first address
both the topological and nomological aspects of the conception of the archive.
Subsequently, we consider the aspects of domiciliation, since - as Derrida rightly
stresses - for a collection of documents to effectively be an archive they have to
be held at a certain 'privileged place', in which the topological and nomological
intertwine. We close this section with a reinterpretation of Derrida's concept of
consignation.
The archontic principle presupposes physical guardianship and control of
the material, the technical substrate, of the archive. As to the locational or
topological aspect of the digital, it follows from our account of digital mediality
(see #11) that we are not primarily dealing with a physical place or topology
but rather a simulated, 'virtual', place and topology generated by means of
algorithmic processing and usually mediated through a computer screen.
Of course, bits and their algorithmic processing also have a physical (mainly
electrical) side, but it is impossible and irrelevant to map the (digital) technical
image to a physical location - particularly given present-day virtualisation and
cloud technology. Note, also, that even a docx - in a file explorer window - has
nothing physical, bit-like, about it.
Therefore, guardianship and control of the digital archive should concern itself
with 'virtual' place and topology. Apart from exceptional situations (such as
the now withdrawn Patriot act), physical guardianship and control of - more
and more worldwide distributed - bits cease to be a relevant part of the figure
of the digital archive. In addition, the technical substrate to guard and control,
namely bits, should be understood as effectively immaterial, given their radical
transferability and flexibility. In this vein, governmental guardianship and
control over digital archives should concern itself not only with document-like
records but also, and primarily, with managing technical and informational
architectures or models ('topologies') and with safeguarding the transparency of
algorithmic processing, e.g. through open source licensing.
15. As to the nomological aspects of Derrida's conception of the archive, that is
the embodiment and objectification of the law (see #6), Flusser's analysis
indicates, firstly, that such a law is to be located in the realm of technical
images. Secondly, it also indicates that the actual forms and structures
of technical images objectifying the law may greatly vary, and differ from
document-like records (e.g., a website). Thus, a government that wishes to
prescribe, interpret, and execute the law explicitly and consciously, needs to
actively concern itself with technical images or simulacra objectifying the
law, by actively managing its topology and safeguarding the transparency
of algorithmic processing. Otherwise it will become increasingly unclear
what and where the law actually is. The law will become increasingly opaque,
non-transparent, and blurry - not only with regard to civic society, but also
within governmental institutions themselves. The same concern applies to
establishing who is to be held accountable, especially when it comes to executing
intergovernmental and privately outsourced governmental tasks in the same
topological space (e.g., cooperative digital environments). One could interpret
intergovernmental cooperation in the chain- or network-wise execution of tasks
as a 'dialogification' in a Flusserian sense and the blurring of the distinction
between public and private as an after-effect of this dialogification (see #13).
In fact, this account of the nomological situation implies that it is
counterproductive, and possibly undesirable from the viewpoint of democratic
accountability, to prioritise a document-like concept of a record when dealing
with the digital. Since the law is no longer reducible to, and fully conceivable as,
a document-like record - and increasingly so. In our view, this conclusion is not
fundamentally affected by complications resulting from the still often combined
(hybrid) usage of both paper and digital media for archiving. A 'conservative'
stance on digitalisation might have undesirable effects from the viewpoint of
democratic accountability: the nomological what, where, and who threatens to
become blurry and loses its necessary transparency.
16. As to domiciliation or topo-nomology, perhaps the most important element of
Derrida's conception of the archive, let us first recall that he defines it as the
privileged place of the archive, namely the place where the physical control
and guardianship happens ('topology') and from which the prescription,
interpretation, and execution of the law takes place ('nomology'). From our
analysis (see #14-15) a different basic form of topo-nomology, inherent to the
digital, seems to arise. The basic structure or traditional model of domiciliation,
involving an 'archontic center', from which things are hierarchically ruled and
managed, seems to have broken into pieces, if not disappeared at all.
Flusser argues that in a utopian-telematic society the basic archontic centralistic
form of ruling and governing will become dysfunctional and will be replaced by
the topo-nomological form inherent to the cybernetic techniques by means of
which ruling and governing will actually take place:
In the universe of technical, telematic images, there is no place for authors
or authorities. Both have become superfluous through the automation of
production, reproduction, distribution, and judgment. In this universe,
archives in liquid times
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