HVA VI DET SI å drive med forskning i det andre tiåret etter millenniumsskiftet? Hva er forskningens natur? Hva kjennetegner dens praksis? Og hvordan har de senere paradigmeskifter for generering og distribusjon av kunnskap gjennom internettet og arkivets nye rolle endret denne praksisen? Denne artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i forskning som en bestemt praksis, samt i forestillingen om forskeren som en som leter etter, og samler opp kunnskap. Argumentet tar form av 15 teser som forholder seg kritisk til de utfordringer vårt rådende forskningsepisteme skaper for forståelsen av «historien» som en kunnskapsform. Forutsetningene for dette epistemet ligger i vår senkapitalistiske, globale og algoritmiske kunnskapsøkonomi, samt i internettet og dets særmerkte operasjoner for å søke etter og distribuere data. Nettopp fordi dette er det rådende forskningsepistemet kan det å være slave av arkivet ha farlige konsekvenser; faktisk kan man si at dette epistemet kan være skadelig for selve forestillingen om fremtiden som en kate-gori av historisk tid.
Theses on the Philosophy of History: The Work of Research in the Age of Digital Searchability and Distributability
What is it to conduct research in the second decade of the 21st century? What is the nature (or what are the modalities) of the work that we as researchers do? What is research as a praxis? And how have recent shifts in paradigms of knowledge generation and distribution – especially around the archive and the Internet, and the Internet as archival – transformed profoundly what we as researchers do, how we do it, and in fact even our very capacity to do it?
In this article, I begin from the idea of research as a praxis, and from the figure of the researcher as a locus for the discovery of knowledges by way of acts of searching and gathering. In 15 theses I engage critically with challenges raised recently for the idea of ‘history’ as a form of knowledge by our own épistémè of re-search; one whose conditions and conditions of possibility are delineated by the emergence of our late capitalist global algorithmic knowledge economy, and the Internet with its distinct operations of searchability and distributability. Because this is our present moment’s épistémè of re-search, I argue that our being in thrall of the archive has dangerous future consequences: in fact it is perilous for the very idea of the future itself as a category of historical time. Concerned by this situation and thus responding forcefully to it, in offering a few grains of dissent I will ‘look with care’ at how we might navigate our way fractiously and thus productively through such a predicament.
Fremstillingen af den nære fortid som retro er et vigtigt fænomen i samtidskulturen, hvor det aktuelt i særlig grad er 1950’erne, der aktiveres som populærkulturel myte. Et vigtigt medie for retrokulturen er pladecoveret, der siden 1950’erne både har været en stærk visuel bærer af den kollektive erindring og selv tematiseret den nære fortid. Gennem covere fra John Lennon, Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids, The Clash og The B-52’s analyserer artiklen fremstillingen af 1950’erne i albumcoveret og beskriver to typer af retro: den autenticitetsbaserede og den karnevalistiske. Disse to typer udfordres dog af den perfektionerede, men også umiddelbare materialisering af 1950’erne i aktuelle covere som af Bloodshot Bill og Kitty, Daisy & Lewis. Med udgangspunkt i disse eksempler diskuteres den aktuelle retrokultur og 1950’ernes betydning som en særligt mytologiseret fortid, som vi både oplever forbindelse med og afstand til.
Populuxe Pop: The retrofication of the 1950s in album cover art
THE REVIVAL OF THE recent past as retro is an important tendency in contemporary culture. Especially the 1950s has been mythologized through the materialization of a distinct «Fiftiesness». An emblematic medium of retro culture and the Fiftiesness is the record album cover: a retro object in itself in the digital age. The article analyzes the revival of the 1950s from the 1970s up till today, describing two distinct modes of retro: one based on authenticity and another one based on the carnivalesque. These are exemplified in album covers by John Lennon, Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids, The Clash and The B-52s.
The current retro culture is characterized by a perfected retro look in graphic style, fonts, layout and the styling of the artists. This is an accessible as well as advanced performance of retro which expresses the general popularity of retro as well as its ever more specialized and dedicated forms. As such materializations of Fiftiesness the album covers by Bloodshot Bill and Kitty, Daisy and Lewis are discussed, and the current interest in the 1950s as a collective memory is debated.