Interestingly enough, I recently watched a movie (which for your sake I will not name, in case you haven't watched it) where the main plot had something to do with an archive. Basically, an evil group infiltrated the 'good guys' and planned to use airships that they built to keep the world safe, linked to satellites, to kill off all 'threats' and these 'threats' were identified using an algorithm that looked into their past (test scores, calls, social media, messages, etc.) to predict their future. The plan was to use this 'archive' of information to kill those who were deemed a threat. Scary... seeing as how that actually seems plausible, apart from the airships maybe... For now...Anyway....
Jacques Derrida (1997) suggests that all media construct archives, and also destroy other archives, differently. I agree with this statement to a certain extent, for example, the arrival of new technology tends to displace the old 'archive'. If we take a look at music for instance, in the past it would be archived in cassette tapes, which are now obsolete as they were replaced by CDs. I believe even CDs will be obsolete eventually, I can't remember the last time I bought one. But that is only considering the physical aspect, because the music and its format still remains the same - an album of songs. In that sense, it doesn't really displace or destroy the old archive, it only does in a physical sense.
However, if we look at it from another angle, perhaps in terms of format (an album), it can be argued that the style of archiving music is changing. People listen to playlists on spotify and don't necessarily buy the whole album anymore, or they just pay to download a single song from an album. In this sense, then Derrida (1997) makes complete sense when he suggests that all media construct archives, and destroy others. I suppose this can be considered a change in the 'archiving' of music - recreating an archive to suit an individuals needs...
Is this kind of 'archiving' is the result of the individualistic world we are living in, or maybe even the cause?
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