KEYNOTE: Why is archiving so (un)sexy again?

(Photo credits: Illustrator: Ann Kiernan for Exposing the Invisible)

KEYNOTE: Ricardo Ginés – Why is archiving so important for NGOs and other organisations?

The sufferings of the young Aaron Swartz

Why should we archive today? Isn’t it boring and dull anyway?
Through some examples from the life of hacker, internet activist and open information campaigner Aaron Swartz, we will see how necessary archiving is today and why it is actually so political. Through his eclectic mind, Aaron Swartz managed to combine his love of libraries and science with deep investigations, facing great repression and in the meantime realising the need for open source software and open digital archives.

Ricardo Ginés now runs the Tactical Techs Archive project – both physical and online. He has previously worked with this NGO, particularly in relation to its investigative segment, Exposing the Invisible, as his background is not so much that of an archivist, but more that of a journalist. Before archiving, he worked especially in investigative journalism projects. Besides that, mainly due to the Corona epidemic, he opened up a new field of interest and research: studies on libraries and archives. Slowly, in fact, he began to recognise the common ground of archiving and research. Originally from the Basque Country, Spain, he studied philosophy and political science in Germany, where he started publishing at the age of 22 and worked as an editorial assistant at the Berlin magazine “Lettre International“. He then spent 11 years in Istanbul as a foreign correspondent for newspapers, magazines and radio and appeared in live interviews for television programmes.

Ricardo is currently an artist in residence at mur.at in Graz: https://mur.at/post/2023-ricardogines/