ACTIVE ARCHIVE*
1979-2003
The idea behind the Artpool project is to create an "ACTIVE ARCHIVE" built on specific artistic activities. This differs from traditional archival practices in that the "ACTIVE ARCHIVE" does not only collect material already existing 'out there', but the way it operates also generates the very material to be archived. By documenting the thoughts circulating within the worldwide network of free and autonomous art, this live archive is brought into being but still remains invisible to profit-oriented art.
The continuity of Artpool's activity is maintained through publications and the building of personal relationships. Artpool contributes to parallel projects and processes in creative and communicative ways and organises its own events related to its specific topics. The archive expands through calls for projects, co-operation and exchange as well as circulating information and enlarging the network.
The "ACTIVE ARCHIVE" is a living institution that can be interpreted as an organic and open artwork or an activist kind of art practice. Its field of operation is the whole world; it works with an exact aim and direction sensitively detecting changes and adjusting accordingly. In the annually reviewed program, which after being defined keeps constructing itself through chance, only the essential concept is permanent.
Over the course of time the documents accumulated in the "ACTIVE ARCHIVE" become subjects of art historical research. The interrelation of historical and art research methodologies improves one's ability, in a manner never experienced before, to perceive problems and to venture into new, previously unknown, research methods.
The two main benefits of the "ACTIVE ARCHIVE" are that an art oriented toward visions of the future will not be separated from its past, and that a dynamic approach to history will replace a hermetic, futureless one. These two factors represent the basic principles and conditions of paradigm shift in the world of art.
György Galántai (English translation by Bea Hock )
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