Tapio Makela -- "Digital Fever: An Art of Memory, Notes for Mobile Arhkeons"

Talk:
One word which both contemporary private and public desires for archiving share in common is digitalisation. It is advertised as a precise, durable, transferrable and convenient way to record and store memories into a condensed space. Archives have been and are currently being transformed into digital formats in many companies, homes and public institutions. The desire to make records and to store them has taken another turn through location based services, research and art projects utilising the GPS as well as WiFi and GSM network cell location data. I will address this turn through a wider discussion of the desire to digitally archive through Jacques Derrida's Archive Fever, A Freudian Impression, and consider the relationship of the "databased" imaginary location to the Ars Memorativa practices. Besides the will to archive, it is perhaps the imaginary mobility of the Arkheon that dislocates the archive from its traditional shape and place adding a new degree to the digital fever.
Bio:
Tapio Mäkelä is the programme chair of ISEA2004, the 12th International Symposium of Electronic Art. Mäkelä is a vice chair of m-cult, Finnish Centre for New Media Culture, which is the main organizer of ISEA2004 with Baltic partners. He is a researcher affiliated with the Media Studies department, University of Turku, Finland. Over the last decade, Mäkelä has presented papers at several international forums and been a visiting lecturer. In the years 1994-1997 Mäkelä was director of artist association Muu, where he established a medialab for artists, the MuuMediaBase. Mäkelä has also realized several net based media cultural projects. He has also been involved in Finnish open source and IT development as well as the Helsinki electronic music scene. Within m-cult he has also worked with new media arts and culture policy research resulting in several publications.
http://www.isea2004.net
http://www.m-cult.org