Data Based Culture: The Digital Database, a Material Reconfiguration of the Archive as Cultural Form of Expression

Abstract

Within the field of new media studies, digital databases are often used as a research tool for data collection or as a source for data visualisation. In this thesis however, the database will be used as case study for a more philosophical analysis. Situating the digital database, as theorized by Lev Manovich, within the poststructuralist archival ideas of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, the aim of this thesis is to examine the digital database on a material and ontological level. Manovich recognizes a shift from the narrative to the database as a cultural form of expression. This thesis puts to the test whether we can indeed acknowledge his theory, or that it is more appropriate to speak of another material reconfiguration of the archive.