In Context: Mason White. © MAS Context.
This contribution is part of “In Context,” a series that features guest curators who browse the archives of MAS Context, uncovering new relationships between articles and establishing new topics.
For this series of In Context, I wanted to highlight the thread through recent issues of temporal contexts; And, in particular, the recurring problem of history. How history is represented, how it is written, and how it is preserved, as one of the more significant acts and byproducts of design. Browsing through the impressive archives of MAS Context, I have selected submissions of all types that present this problem of the archive itself. The problem of history as an affront to the now, and a provocation to our memory of what was, that really mattered. Maybe even more so now—as any form of permanence is seen as unnecessary, wasteful even—in the face of rapid urbanization and conflicted renewal and adaptation standards, history is a project unto itself.
Brendan Crain’s survey of applications preserving digital ghosts of cities past outlines a potential augmented history. Jonathan Andrew’s stunning photographs of World War II bunkers across The Netherlands, Belgium, and France convey the spatial permanence of (some) history. Ethel Baraona and Cesar Reyes engage Beatriz Colomina on the fleeting immediacy of (little) publications to curate and steer the future of history. Lick Fai Eric Ho’s essay offers a range of trajectories on historical models of open processes and collaborative networks. Iker Gil’s conversation with Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle inspires the possibilities of phantoms, clouds, icebergs, and delays to create temporary registrations of histories or, even, false histories.
ON THE QUICKENING OF HISTORY
Essay by Brendan Crain.
Issue: 11 | SPEED FALL 11
WW2 BUNKERS
Photographs by Jonathan Andrew.
Issue: 10 | CONFLICT SUMMER 11
FROM XEROGRAPHY TO HTML
Ethel Baraona Pohl and Cesar Reyes interview Beatriz Colomina.
Issue: 9 | NETWORK SPRING 11
OPEN MANIFESTO FOR MASS CREATION
Essay by Lick Fai Eric Ho.
Issue: 8 | PUBLIC WINTER 10
INFORMATION AND THE RELUCTANT IMAGE
A conversation between Iker Gil and Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.
Issue: 7 | INFORMATION FALL 10