The Archival Transition from Analogue to Digital: Revisiting Derrida and Flusser

This article addresses the topic of today’s archival transition from analogue to digital, by discussing and comparing Jacques Derrida and Vilém Flusser. Derrida stresses that, traditionally, an archive is largely defined by what he calls domiciliation, involving a hierarchical and centralized gathering and structuring of information. According to Flusser, the realm of digital, algorithmically processed, information consists of what he calls technical images, which impose a shift from discursive (or textual) to dialogical (e.g., hyperlinked) information. This shift would make the traditional, centralized structure of the archive gradually obsolete, not from a Derridean ‘deconstructivist’ perspective, but from a techno-functionalist perspective. The discussion results in raising some theoretical and practical questions regarding the present-day archive, including the operational functionalities that need to be built into the digital for reasons of accountability.