Conference; (De)constructing the Archive in a Digital Age.

One-day debate on the possibilities of the archive.

This event aims to provide an environment for sharing information whilst stimulating debates about the role of the archive within art, culture and design.

Possible topics of enquiry may include but are not limited to;

The discussion about how the archive should respond to the digital age continues. How does the physical archive change and adapt in the face of new technologies?

When is the archive not an archive? What is the difference between the archive and the collection?

How should we respond to the growing number of images available to us in the digital archive, as increasingly we are exposed to photographs for which there are no original viewing contexts available? What is the value of these decontextualised and dematerialised documents to the researcher as historical evidence?

How is the institutional archive to respond to questions about the democratization of the archive, not only through the process of digitisation and online access but also the growing use of more interactive forms of viewing/sharing with web 2.0?