Jane Birkin’s recently published Archive, Photography and the Language of Administration approaches one of the most critical topics in digital humanities: archives. Organized in a series of separate but connected essays, rather than formal chapters, it covers themes from the history of image archives to the social component of archives, cataloging and descriptions, technical data, performativity and finally opens up the theme of postdigital archives. Many types of archives are covered by this book, from methodical ones from natural sciences and controlling Secret Service archives to random digital snapshot archives. The book covers the history of photography and its memory, ranging in interest from glass plates and paper items to poor images such as thumbnails. It refers to original artworks and reproductions.
The book’s specific focus is on the distinction but also the relationship between image and text, which Ronald Barthes introduced in his analysis of image theory, showing how...