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Coding archival thoughts

Archives do not exist only in a dusty basement, or an old drawer filled with supermarket receipts, wrinkled love notes and parking tickets. With the birth of the internet and gradual expanding of cyber-politics digitally formed archives have become even more perplex and intelligent. Coding Information means translating it in a language readable by computers, even though unreadable by people. Both texts tell the exact same thing. Which one can you read?

Text I

This is an archive

This is not an archive

„Every measurement slowly reveals the workings of the criminal. Careful observation and patience will reveal the truth.“

Alphonse Bertillon, French criminologist, Creator of one of the first filing systems

“The Archive designates the collection of all material traces left behind by a particular historical period and culture. In examining these traces one can deduce the historical a priori of the period and then if one is looking at science, one can deduce the episteme of the period. None of these concepts has predictive value – they are all descriptions of limited historical orders.”

Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969

“The unstable future according to the open archive produces more archive, and that is why the archive is never closed. It opens out of the future””

Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever, 1996

Code derives from the Latin codex or caudex refering to “the stock or stem of a tree, a board or tablet of wood smeared over with wax, on which the ancients originally wrote”. Digital coding is a mute place „in-between“, an area that cannot be placed on the status of a selfseficient Medium, but functions merely upon another Medium.

A metalinguistic means that masks information and flows through channels.

Text II

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1100101 01110010 01111001 0010000001101101 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 0010000001110011 01101100 01101111 01110111 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110110 01100101 01100001 01101100 01110011 0010000001110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01110010 01101001 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100001 01101100 00101110 0010000001000011 01100001 01110010 01100101 01100110 01110101 01101100 00100000 01101111 01100010 01110011 01100101 01110010 01110110 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 0010000001110000 01100001 01110100 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 0010000001110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 0

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00 01110010 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100110 01110100 0010000001100010 01100101 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01100001 0010000001110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110101 01101100 01100001 01110010 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110010 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101100 00100000 01110000 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 0010000001100011 01110101 01101100 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100101 00101110 0010000001001001 01101110 0010000001100101 01111000 01100001 01101101 01101001 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 0010000001100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100100 01110101 01100011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 0010000001101000 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01100101 01101100 00100000 01000110 01101111 01110101 01100011 01100001 01110101 01101100 01110100 00101100 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 0010000001000001 01110010 01100011 01101000 01100001 01100101 01101111 01101100 01101111 01100111 01111001 0010000001101111 01100110 0010000001001011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100101 01100100 01100111 01100101 00101100 00100000 00110001 00111001 00110110 00111001 00101110 00100000 00001010 00011100 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110101 01101110 01110011 01110100 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100101 0010000001100001 01100011 01100011 01101111 01110010 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100011 01101000 01101001 01110110 01100101 0010000001110000 01110010 01101111 01100100 01110101 01100011 01100101 01110011 0010000001101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100011 01101000 01101001 01110110 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 0010000001110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101000 01111001 0010000001110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100011 01101000 01101001 01110110 01100101 0010000001101001 01110011 0010000001101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 0010000001100011 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110000 01100101 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 0010000001101111 01100110 0010000001110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100101 00011101 00011101 00001010 01001010 01100001 01100011 01110001 01110101 01100101 01110011 0010000001000100 01100101 01110010 01101001 01100100 01100100 01100001 00101100 0010000001000001 01110010 01100011 01101000 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01000110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00101100 0010000000110001 00111001 00111001 00110110 00101110 0010000000001010

P.S

In case you happen to be a robot, you’re welcome.