Archive, Photography and the Language of Administration

Abstract

Jane Birkin’s recently published Archive, Photography and the Language of Administration approaches one of the most critical topics in digital humanities: archives. Organized in a series of separate but connected essays, rather than formal chapters, it covers themes from the history of image archives to the social component of archives, cataloging and descriptions, technical data, performativity and finally opens up the theme of postdigital archives. Many types of archives are covered by this book, from methodical ones from natural sciences and controlling Secret Service archives to random digital snapshot archives. The book covers the history of photography and its memory, ranging in interest from glass plates and paper items to poor images such as thumbnails. It refers to original artworks and reproductions.The book’s specific focus is on the distinction but also the relationship between image and text, which Ronald Barthes introduced in his analysis of image theory, showing how text nails down the polyvalent meaning and ambiguity of the image by its precision. Moving between the formality of Foucault’s disciplinary discourse to the narrativity of Derrida, but also the rigid dualism of Barthes, Birkin sees more practical purpose in using text in both conceptual and descriptive writing, in a variety of forms, as label, tag, ekphrasis, iconographic reading, narrative, etc. Thus, the text has a triple function; it is used to “reveal, classify and to reproduce” (p. 42) the image as a document.Archive, Photography and the Language of Administration is a substantial read. Bringing up information, theories and references in significant density, it supplements and updates both previous knowledge on archives and its theories, hardly omitting any important detail in capturing the entire thematic landscape. As such, it would be a valuable source for archivists of all kinds, but furthermore it would be a great handbook for studies in the domain.