Paper short abstract:

This paper examines some of the new definitions of archive in digital context comparing them to an archive in the traditional sense of the word. It explores the ways of understanding archive and its position in two worlds of old and new media.

Paper long abstract:

The paper aims at presenting new ways of thinking and writing about archives which coincided with huge technological developments. As is well known, in contemporary age the archive-notion is notably re-articulated. From the standard view, which often evokes obsolete and abandoned places full of drawers and shelves laden with old documents, archive and the archival terminology became a metaphor for a lot of our software-based interaction.

The texts discusses the digital archive concept. The concept itself raises some of the following questions: What does digital archive mean when most rudimentary components of classical (state) archives since ancient times have been tied to written texts - that is to the letters of the vocal alphabet? Is the term digital archive an appropriate term, if one takes into account that "digital" and "archive" are clashing notes because they refer to the basic, and opposite, characteristics: openness versus closeness, passive storage versus active use, stable sources versus updating, and the paradigmatic predominance of the written or printed document, versus the abstract numerical super-code of zeros and ones? As all these oppositions point to the differences between analogue and digital world, the questions mentioned above will be discussed within the context of relation between old and new media.