Lost and Living Archives

An archive is a collection of documents and records that is preserved for historical purposes. As such, an archive is considered a site of the past, a place that contains traces of a collective memory of a nation, a people or a group. Digital archives have changed from stable entities into flexible systems, referred to with the term 'Living Archives'. But in which ways has this change affected our relationship to the past, present and future? Will the erased, forgotten and neglected be redeemed, and new memories be allowed? Will the fictional versus factual mode of archiving offer the democracy that the public domain implies, or is it another way for public instruments of power to operate? 'Lost and Living (in) Archives' shows that an archive is not simply a recording, a reflection, or an image of an event, but that it shapes the event itself and thus influences both present and past.