Podcast: “The living archive”
Podcast: “The living archive” (Benoît Labourdette, 44’, 2023, french speaking).
How empowering people to take responsibility for archiving and using data can be a real strategy for the vitality of creation, both artistically and economically.
In this podcast (44 minutes), I lay the conceptual and technical foundations, then propose strategies, based on concrete examples. Among the topics covered are: digital heritage, the long tail, Agnès Varda, Netflix, Disney, Chris Anderson, Moore’s Law, TED conferences, indirect business models, etc.
This podcast was recorded as a contribution to the colloquium “Clicking the archive - the digital and the safeguarding of artistic practices” organized by Vincent Rioux (École des Beaux-Arts de Paris) and Benjamin Efrati (EHESS/BNF). The symposium takes place on December 12 and 13, 2023 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris (Amphitéâtre des Loges - 14 Rue Bonaparte 75006 Paris), and is free of charge.
Conference presentation text
What happens when the archive becomes accessible at the click of a button from our computers?
Long associated with time and history, the notion of the archive has undergone major changes over the last forty years. It now also applies to the safeguarding of digital data.
Since 1992, French law has made digital production part of France’s cultural heritage. However, a large part of the cultural community is unaware of the concept of digital legal deposit. Over the past thirty years, artistic and creative practices have constantly evolved and adapted to the digital tools developed by the web giants and the Open Source community. Despite the emergence of a variety of archiving practices (cloud storage, streaming platforms, etc.), the question of archiving artistic practices remains an unresolved issue, even though it directly concerns the various cultural milieus (artistic production, research, heritage).
The aim of this symposium is to set out a number of observations and draw up an overview of current practices in terms of individual and collective preservation. How can we approach natively digital artistic experiences and the digital documentation of material practices? Are there any “best practices” in terms of individual digital archiving? What is the place of the digital in the heritage of culture from the point of view of the French state? This overview of the relationship between artistic practice and digital archiving is aimed primarily at art students and young artists, as well as professionals and researchers.
Since 1992, the appearance and disappearance of proprietary media, operating systems and processors have been the driving forces behind the evolution of the computer ecosystem, storage media and digital practices. As a result, the preservation of works of art in dematerialized form has been put to the test by the versatility of computing techniques. How much data has been lost, erased, formatted?
If we agree that the construction of databases and the interfaces that enable them to be consulted is the hallmark of the digital age, then sampling digital artistic practices is a particularly important issue in accounting for the cultural and social transformations that characterize the early 21st century. What will future archaeologists conclude by examining the remains of our current databases?
This colloquium proposes a reflection on the archiving and patrimonialization of digital creative practices from a variety of perspectives. It will be an opportunity to examine legal, juridical and philosophical issues.
All contributions to the symposium (audio)
In the XXIst Century, most of the human productions are made with digital tools and circulate in digital form: written, photo, sound, video, multimedia...
What is heritage? It is the access to human productions of the past and present (cultural, artistic, industrial, built, financial...). Heritage has a cultural, political, economic and historical value. Without heritage, societies have no history. Without the Eiffel Tower, without the Sacré Cœur, without the Louvre Museum and other elements of architectural heritage, Paris would not have a tourist economy, for example.
The heritage that we will be able to produce from contemporary digital productions will strongly contribute to our future wealth, in every sense of the word. But how can we identify, build up and enhance our digital heritage? Methodological, technical and strategic elements.
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Taking back control of our data
A cultural path, not just a technical and legal one.
When American law reigns over European data, the only response is to rebuild a culture of digital sovereignty, piece by piece, NAS by NAS, one (…) -
Sovereign Digital, a Micropolitical Choice
Escaping the Hegemonic Imaginary of Digital Tools.
Our daily choices of digital tools lock us into a capitalist imaginary. Moving from Microsoft to Free Software is not just a technical issue: it (…) -
Digital sovereignty, a democratic emergency
When our public institutions jeopardize our collective autonomy.
The loss of our digital sovereignty does not result from the thoughtlessness of citizen-users, but from a form of political unconsciousness (…) -
Sovereignty or Security?
Digital responsibility put to the test of reality.
The fire at a state data center in South Korea in September 2025 proves human fragility in the face of digital storage. Between risky sovereignty (…) -
Reflection on the Evolution of Audiovisual Media in Libraries
For a citizen-driven heritage preservation of territorial audiovisual creations.
Libraries are facing the disappearance of physical audiovisual media. This technical transformation calls, in my view, for an anthropological (…) -
Conformism versus Sovereignty
The comfort of digital dependence versus the requirement of data mastery.
Our digital lives rely on standardized tools. While this conformism simplifies usage, it exposes us to a loss of control. Let us reflect on this (…) -
For a Political Consciousness of Digital Technology
When our technological choices shape tomorrow’s world.
Every click, every application used, every digital service adopted constitutes a political act that participates in building our collective (…) -
“The flavor of data”: for a phenomenology of digital autonomy
Sentiment of dependency and digital sovereignty.
In the contemporary digital ecosystem, our apparent freedom of use conceals a structural and total dependence on platforms. This illusion of (…) -
The Fantasy of Digital Ecology
When individual guilt-shaming masks industrial predation.
In our situation of ecological emergency, greenwashing diverts our attention from the real culprits. While we conscientiously sort our waste, the (…) -
Cultural data and cultural rights
For an inclusive heritage democracy in the digital age.
Citizen cultural data is tomorrow’s heritage. Their recognition and preservation constitute a major democratic challenge for building a (…) -
Cultivating digital sovereignty
For a democratic reclaiming of our digital spaces.
Faced with our growing dependence on tech giants, digital sovereignty is becoming a major democratic challenge. It’s time to act collectively. The (…) -
Digital politics
When clicking becomes voting: the hidden face of our technological choices.
Code is law: digital tools are not neutral. Our daily technological choices are political acts that shape the world. Here are concrete elements (…) -
Cultural rights and preservation of digital heritage
Bernard Stiegler’s technical philosophy sheds political light.
Have you ever tried to find a video you loved on YouTube from ten years ago? A blog post that made an impression on you? Your friends’ photos on (…) -
Our fragile memory
For a digital archiving policy.
Our lives are now inscribed in digital form: emails, photos, documents, etc. But this collective memory is excessively fragile. Without active (…) -
Liability and computer backup
To stop turning our backs on our future.
Computer backup is often neglected due to a lack of understanding and the illusion of the ubiquity of digital data. This unawareness exposes us to (…) -
Digital and rationality
For a non-phantasmic vision of digital technologies.
Digital technology, often wrongly associated with rationality, is in reality an imperfect and material technology. Our choices of digital tools (…) -
Podcast: “The living archive”
Benoît Labourdette reflects on the challenges of digital archiving in the arts and culture (44’, 2023).
How empowering people to take responsibility for archiving and using data can be a real strategy for the vitality of creation, both artistically (…) -
Digital is not immaterial
Elements of understanding.
The digital world is much more material than we think. It seems important to me to take the measure of it in a concrete way, it is what can allow (…) -
“The Long Tail”: Cultural Diversity in the Digital Age
Tool for the design of cultural projects.
The “long tail” is one of the essential concepts of the Internet economy. Contrary to popular belief, on the Internet it is the great diversity of (…) -
“Artistic creation and digital heritage”: conference by Benoît Labourdette
Bibliothèque Forney (Paris) on Thursday, April 28, 2022 from 7:30 pm to 9 pm. Free admission.
Awareness and responsibility in the present with regard to our digital heritage are the guarantee of the construction of our humanity.Human (…)
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“The Long Tail”: Cultural Diversity in the Digital Age
Tool for the design of cultural projects.
The “long tail” is one of the essential concepts of the Internet economy. Contrary to popular belief, on the Internet it is the great diversity of (…) -
Piracy: an unknown blessing for the audiovisual sector
Legal, historical, technological, economic and political elements.
“Piracy is a danger for creation, infringers must be punished”: this is the commonly accepted discourse, which directs points of view, regulatory (…) -
Digital is not immaterial
Elements of understanding.
The digital world is much more material than we think. It seems important to me to take the measure of it in a concrete way, it is what can allow (…) -
Moore’s Law
Methods and tools for audiovisual and digital production
An empirical law of computing that has more impact than we imagine on professional audiovisual practices. Gordon MooreGordon Moore, a chemist (…) -
Will Heritage Still Be Part of Our Lives in 2045? Digitising collections is not enough: the challenge is to enable their appropriation by citizens.
Cultural practices in 2045 will be as different from ours as ours are from those of 2005. At that time, YouTube did not exist, no one had a (…)