An Archival Impulse: Twenty Years Later

This year [2024] marks the 20th anniversary of An Archival Impulse. In it, Hal Foster introduces the artist-as-archivist, noting that it has gained a renowned impetus as a critical response to the current saturation of stimuli and the search for new ways of thinking on past, present, and future. At one point, he suggests that the ideal medium for archive-based art might be the web - yet emphasising that most artists still prioritise materiality and human interpretation over complete virtualisation and automation. We mustn’t forget that Foster referred to coeval artists and that, nowadays, his observations no longer fully capture the current landscape. Increasingly, artists are making fruitful use of digital tools, using the internet, or taking advantage of machine learning algorithms to process vast datasets. This raises questions about whether the fundamental principles of archival art have changed, the challenges its facing, and the insights these emerging practices can provide. This paper will reflect on this discrete category expansion.