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New: performing the archive
and archival process in both these examples of movies and (video) games have great effect on our everyday online experiences at large. What is experienced as rapid technological (and consequently social) change and accelerated history is echoed in technological nostalgia and cultural melancholy (seen for example in other traces of NEW: Performing the Archive as well as a number of Tumblr aesthetics and blogs). What I am saying is not that this creates a necessary battle between “art” and “not art”. What these examples, as well as many of the other traces of documentation from NEW: Performing The Archive do open up for is a way to approach and see how cultural objects intersect. Indeed, these are exciting times for art and popular culture as they continue to feed off each other and create synergetic experiences. Alienation is, in a sense, a curtain that needed to be pulled away. And in the meantime, as many cultural institutions have yet to follow suit, I, the viewer can playfully get involved without confirmed ideals, if nothing else for momentary introspection, but at best feeling as repurposed as the archival traces themselves.
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