Twenty Theses on the Anarchive

I. The Memory institution is a cultural universal.

II. In the West, memory institutions are the library, the museum and the archive.

III. The library is a collection of documents that share a location – it is controlled by means of an catalogue.

IV. The museum is a collection of objects that share a location and a provenance – it is controlled by means of a finding aid.

V. The archive is a collection of unique records that share a location and a provenance – it is controlled by means of a finding aid.

VI. The archive is an ordered process that consists of rules for administration, accession, appraisal, arrangement, description, access, and retention.

VII. The archive is understood in the post-Enlightenment West as an instrument.

VIII. As an instrument and site of power, the archive may be subject to critique.

IX. The contemporary critique of the archive is a reaction critique that questions who should hold archival power rather than interrogating the question of archival power itself.

X. Because memory institutions – of which the archive is one – are cultural universals, the comprehensive critique of archival order as both instrument and regime is necessary.

XI. At present, the question of archival power habitually resists critique.

XII. When [V] and [VI] are consolidated, the archive may be understood as both a controlled collection of unique records that share a location and a provenance, and an ordered process that consists of rules for administration, accession, appraisal, arrangement, description, access, and retention.

XIII. [XII] may be restated: the instrumental archive is a restricted collection of unique and valuable records that share a location and a provenance, which are subject to administrative, regulatory, legal. and juridical oversight.

XIV. The present archival order may thus be understood as a consequence of the assignment of value to the unique record and the imposition of property rights upon its provenance.

XV. It is necessary to construct an archive that resists administrative control, offers unrestricted access, and abstracts itself from property regimes that assign value and license use: an anarchive.

XVI. To do so, the anarchive must dispense with both the assignment of value and the imposition of property rights.

XVII. Rather than “provenance,”which assumes a point of origin which may assert a right of property upon the record, let us speak of “milieu,” where property rights are void.

XVIII. Rather than uniqueness, which assumes value and hence ownership, let us speak of records as simulacra that are distinguishable neither as original or copy.

XIX. Thus, the anarchive is a collection of records that share a location and a milieu – it is controlled by a finding aid.

XX. The anarchive may be understood as an ordered process that consists of rules for accession, arrangement, and description.

CODA. The anarchive is already extant. It is not an instrument. It only awaits control.

-Adam Seigel