Beyond Additive Subtraction; Etch and Sketch Memories

The Aesthetics of Erasure photograph (oil on linen), He Did Not See Any American blue, by Artist Rights Society member, Jenny Holzer (ARS), was a visual symbol of how most marginalized populations feel when sorting through the historical records seeking knowledge and the missing pieces of their blotted out past. I was constantly looking to see if could possible read through the blacked out words that would reveal their true context and also to solve the mystery of why those particular paragraphs were selected for erasure compared to those words still visible. 

It lead me to the supplemental article by Ella Klik and Diane Kamin, Between Archived, Shredded, and Lost/Found: Erasure in the Digital and Artistic Contexts.  In this essay both writers point out very interesting perspectives that I never thought of as an artist and writer.  New attitudes, desires and connections on keeping or discarding artwork in the digital era, was that of “Beyond Additive Subtraction”. She examines scholars Matthew Kirschnman, Wendy Chun and Wolfgang Ernst works to describe the reoccurring act of erasure and how it is unavoidable.  These scholars in their works believed that ‘overwriting’ and and erasing was necessary to make room for new data. The act of erasing and recreating in the same space is a “habitual condition of the digital.” The idea that the relationship between the surface and the the inscription is changing with electronic media, which means a radical change in how we store and keep archives digitally is now a new “dyna-archive” compared to the classical archive. Chun stresses the duality of the digital archive, citing that erasure is habitual and continuous. 

Chun’s idea of digital media production being habitual and continuous made me think about my childhood toy the Etch and Sketch.  One of my favorite creating toys that made me feel good about my artwork. It also had a dual system of creating and erasing in order to make room for something new. I always thought on the art that had to be erased. Yet, I just happily deleted it (shook it) and poof gone!  I could always see the remnants and tiny traces of what I had just lost, yet I was more focused on the new creation that would overwrite it.

Connecting both of these concepts make the act of erasing the opposite of storing both frustrating and liberating. One goes with the other? Production and recycling all in one movement?  What does that do for long-term archival practices?  Can we deal the idea of creating something, not saving it and move on by making something to replace it?  This is an interesting yet complicated practice, yet it may be the future of digital archiving.

 

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