Creative Archive Summary of Understanding

To archive seems a very human response to situations. By this I mean it is common for people to want to collect things related to their past and experiences. For example, a lot of people spend time collecting photos from their experiences. In the past, this was more common through physical albums and printed photos. In more modern times it is online through social media platforms such as Instagram. There is a sense of nostalgia then when memories are brought up by viewing the photos. Maybe it is a fear of forgetting that drives us to do it.

What should an archive be?

• Curated to showcase an idea or narrative
• Linked to time
• Displayed creatively

What an archive isn’t

• A random collection
• An album of pictures
• A museum display

Reflection

The idea I am focusing on is an archive of the use of spirals. I feel like this has been a constant motif throughout the course for me and I would like to tie all this thinking together. Taking a shape and exploring all the different relations to time and place it has. It has links to mythology, geometry, nature, land art, and astronomy as well as connotations to the model of time itself. I have an idea of how to present it as a spiral that you can explore by going back in time through how they have been used but also links between the arms to represent the connections.

Questions

1. How in-depth is this archive going to be, my topic is quite broad so could end in lots of directions but that is part of the process.

Event and Intentions

The pivotal event I want to link it to is the carving of the Newgrange spirals, thought to be around 3200 BC. As far as I know, these are some of the earliest examples of spirals in art and so I want to archive back from here. Who made them? Who saw them? How did the idea of spirals get passed along to where we are now?