Archive Fever
"Is he not investing in useless expenditure? Is he not in the process of mobilizing a ponderous archiving machine (press, printing, ink, paper) to record something which in the ed does not merit such expense? Is not what he is preparing to deliver to the printers so trivial as to be available everywhere?"
Pero el archivo no es inerte, no es mimético—es realizativo, condiciona lo observado y lo archivado. Un toque McLuhaniano:
"No, the technical structure of the archiving archive also determines the structure of the archivable content even in its very coming into existence and in its relationship to the future. the archivization produces as much as it records the event. This is also our political experience of the so-called news media."
Y sin embargo...
"We will always wonder what, in this mal d'archive, he may have burned. We will always wonder, sharing with compassion to this archive fever, what may have burned of his secret passions, of his correspondence, or of his 'life'. Burned without him, without remains, and without knowledge. With no possible response, be it spectral or not, originary or secondary, without a name, without the least symptom, and without even an ash."
