...overMODELing...

>>INTRO

(to enter findable/searchable of less visible by non-obvious)

Describing and interpreting archive content as items (be it physical objects, media files or else) and their (co)relations (with social, cultural and other aspects) often requires compromises mostly related to what are the given/established norms, practices and affordances of archiving practices of the moment and context. With established cultural forms and fields of (social/knowledge) production there are many norms and affordance to use, but with emerging/new ones one needs to do with less resources as well as to improvise and innovate faster, with aspiration to adapt and do/develop what is (more>most) adequate.

Describing new forms/artefacts/relations with old world nomenclature and interpreting, leaves gaps that need filling with experimental and bold attempts of developments. In fields of contemporary arts and independent culture new forms and modalities of production and outputs emerge more often and their classification, categorization, translation and interpretation is often lagging behind due to limited resources and less established protocols. Creators/authors also often intentionally play in/with ambivalence and frivolity of (not making) fixed/fixing choices and sometimes create generative works (or even just scripts/recipes for future productions).

Tensions and collisions of the ‘real world’ materiality and its archiving with meta-data descriptions in/around archives are sometimes obvious and ‘fixable’, other times only surface while rendering context of its presence via other systems (cultural forms like exhibitions or technical setups like knowledge graphs)... This is an effort to deal with some of convoluted issues by presenting data (over)modeling as an approach to describe items simultaneously in multiple ways and via multiple systems, being aware of limitations of each and impossibility to fully encapsulate multi-dimensional/faceted realities only within archives.

Overmodeling of data is a practice/method to over-describe by using multiple tactics in ways of describing (from spectrum of normative conservative to bold new ones) without deciding on a single ‘perfect’ choice in the process. It is a kind of quick-and-dirty approach in the Do-It-Yourself economy in hope it becomes participative and embraced as a Do-It-With-Others. Intentional redundancy and futurity of it serves as a commitment to the best-possible and least-problematic compromises of unperfect (archiving/modeling) worlds.

Program booklets and Flyers are some of the most important artefacts of non-institutional/civil-society culture. They tend to be info dense, often porous publications without fixed norm/structure. They are likely the most overlooked and underutilized documentation in mainstream archives. They are rearly transcribed/described in conventional archiving practices and under-valued outside of immediate information dissemination use in its micro-context. Their use was peaking in late 80s and 90s, less in 00s, after that often substituted with digital versions and at worst simplified and formatted to match only corporate ‘social media’ platforms, that again compressed and sometimes fully erased them in (semi)automatic transitions/updates/closures. Their potential value is in reconstructions and re-evaluation of relations and resources in networks of individuals, initiatives, infrastructures and other organizations forms/entities is bigger when they are fully info-mapped and connected with others related databases, archives, collections, knowledge graphs and other systems.

EXAMPLES of #SitniTisak category

Program booklet: iCommons Summit 2007 https://abcdnk.hr/Arhiv/Q13201

Flyer: CRITICAL_UPGRADE - new.media.culture.week 2002 https://abcdnk.hr/Arhiv/Q...

Audio & Video files are some of the most complex and costly outputs of non-institutional/civil-society culture. They tend to be under used, often hard to find or re-use after the initial publishing/screening. They are likely more present on commercial online platforms then in mainstream archives. They are rearly transcribed/described in more then one language and archives are still to establish costly transcoding/translation services for them (especially for Croatian language). Their use peaked in late 90s and 00s, as well as during COVID-19 pandemic but still remain somewhat relevant. Simplified, playfulness and short-attention/focus formatsemerged to match corporate ‘social media’ platforms and algorytmic play>search>listing as less sophisticated but more present among youth and younger generations. Their value remains in ability to capture multi-dimensional and sometimes complex ideas/content in popular and accessible ways, but limitations are often with complex licencing/broadcasting/screening/re-use rights.

EXAMPLES of #AudioVideo category

Video: CRITICAL_UPGRADE - new.media.culture.week 2002 https://abcdnk.hr/Arhiv/Q...

Audio: ... https://abcdnk.hr/Arhiv/Q...