Digital Phantasms: The Archivization of History and Memory

Digital Phantasms: The Archaivization of History and Memory is a scholarly exposition structured into three segments encompassing eight chapters. This work converges upon the nuanced predicament of digitality, thereby introducing a novel aesthetic paradigm and archival ethics within the contemporary cultural milieu. In essence, digitality manifests as an elusive, spectral trajectory upon the surface of digital archives, elucidated through the experimental endeavors in digital production by Taiwanese artists. With an exhaustive investigative approach, this monograph critically examines the landscape of contemporary digital cultural production in Taiwan across diverse domains, including literature, film, and contemporary art. Its ambition is to furnish a comprehensive compendium featuring meticulous case studies and extensive theoretical dialogues addressing the intricate dimensions of these emergent issues.

 

Employing a theoretical framework anchored in the scholarship of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Barthes, and other luminaries, the narrative navigates the multifaceted realm of digital objects. These encompass digital archives, documentaries, films, artworks, and installations – artifacts engendered through diverse digital technologies. Consequently, they serve as exemplary instances, elucidating the operational logic of digitality that substantiates the contemporary production of digital archives and artworks. Through scrupulous scrutiny of these digital archival entities, the text articulates a perspicacious testament to the logic of digitality prevalent in contemporary Taiwanese cultural production. Furthermore, it propounds a pioneering exemplar for prospective scholarly investigations within the evolving domain of digital cultural studies.