Rage Against the Archive

Abstract

'Rage Against the Archive' is an experimental browser-based video that critically probes how the New York Public Library's website catalogs, displays and even sells dehumanizing ethnographic photos from the 19th-century colonial-era publication The People of India. This work interrogates how images get decontexualized due to the archival process, and documents the “hacking” methodology used to insert different texts on the website using HTML in a symbolic act of Electronic Civil Disobedience. The People of India, published between 1868-75, is one of the world's most comprehensive ethnographic books, commissioned by the British colonial government in India after the 1857 First War of Independence. After having experienced violent uprisings and the first challenge to their colonial rule, the British were keen to understand the native tribes and their cultures to rule them better and prevent future rebellions. The camera, masquerading as an objective device, was employed as an imperial tool by the colonial government to document natives, “othering” them in this process. How do these problematic historical images exist in our contemporary Networked Image Culture? This video scrutinizes whether institutional archives inadvertently perpetuate colonial exploitation and the camera's violence, raising ethical questions about how we as a more conscientious society should consume certain images online.