Consciousness of Archives

Abstract

Growing number and contents of photographic archives give rise to questions of why and how to use them. In this article I compare the situation of 30 years ago – as in 1989 I organized the conference concerning these problems – with present situation. The difference is striking, both because of our knowledge about the state and importance of such archives and the present technological possibilities resulting from digitalization and internet links. My presentation of today situation follows latest publications by Lev Manovich who proposes to establish Data Science to introduce computer quantitative methods into art history. As Manovich says, such methods will help us to discover new links in art history and break from old schematic thinking. Yet it is also possible that automatization of such proceedings may obscure the esential values that do not fit to quatitative methods. I present two examples of actual investigations into archives of two polish photographers, Witold Romer and Tadeusz Cyprian, that gave new light on their output, although no computerized methods were used in that case. I intent to point out the common ground for both traditional and up-to-date methods of investigating photographic archives.