The Total Archive. On the Function of Non- Knowledge in Digital Cultures

Abstract

This article tries to combine two tendencies in digital cultures. On the one hand, search engines and social media seem to erase former gaps of knowledge that in the history of literature and film, from Sophocles’ OEDIPUS REX to the Hollywood romantic comedy, were crucial to the tragic or comical plots. On the other hand, this abundance of knowledge, all these electronic encyclopedias and social connections in our pockets, is organized by a set of algorithms and computational per-formances that are unknown and even myterious to their users. The article discusses this simulta-neous growth of knowledge and non-knowledge in digital cultures. The total archive of our presence produces new illegibilities.