Thanks, David. I read the summary of Benjamin’s ‘Arcades’ project. Very interesting as thinking about linked things.
ja
On Oct 10, 2014, at 7:23 AM, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Jim wrote in response to me:
>
> > what was it Walter Benjamin said all those years ago about card-index files and the notion of plot?
>
> I don’t know. What did he say?
>
> My memory was conflating two things. One was Benjamin's 'Arcades' project, which is summarised here, with awful screen background:
>
> http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/waltbenj/yarcades.html
>
> Secondly he wrote such as "The card index marks the conquest of three-dimensional writing, and so presents an astonishing counterpoint to the three-dimensionality of script in its original form as rune or knot notation. (And today the book is already, as the present mode of scholarly production demonstrates, an outdated mediation between two different filing systems. For everything that matters is to be found in the card box of the researcher who wrote it, and the scholar studying it assimilates it into his own card index.)" In other words, "all is note," or perhaps better: "all that matters is note."
> He further imagined a possibility of card-indexes that could communicate directly to each other, independent of the researcher.
>
> db
|