C: Speaking of clandestine collections... I think that, lately, there have been a lot of articles and reflections on collections. The act of collecting in digital space has become somewhat of a second nature. Don't you think almost everybody has at least one virtual collection of some kind?

 

F: Yes, collecting as a methodology almost. I feel like this whole tendency of data being registered and accessible online  (which might be more of a reality than a tendency, but nonetheless) has resulted in the fact that archives are coming back into "fashion".

 

C: Do you mean as something nostalgic?

 

F: Yes. Well... I'm not really sure in what way to grasp the hype, but I think it might be equivalent to that of the book, and how it is gaining new values parallel to the development of digital reading. So whereas 'offlineness' previously was something taken for granted — or not in need for being appreciated — it has now become an element of value added to this object that we've had around for ages: the book. And when speaking about offline archives, I think they could definitely also be appreciated for some kind of, yeah... nostalgia, but furthermore also for the actual act of being a specific selection.

 

C: Curation, maybe?

 

F: Yes, in some way, since in order to be part of an archive, there has to be a reason...

 

C: Yeah, a relevance. And by the way, 'archive' sounds like it should be more than strictly personal. It has a function: gathering information that becomes useful thanks to the fact that it is multiple and archived over a certain time span. Whereas a 'collection' can be something as random as Italian 20 cents, you know what I mean?

 

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