The Archive Curator

I am fascinated by the fact that many musicians as they develop their career become very interested in curating their archive. I’m thinking particularly of people like Robert Fripp (King Crimson) and Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, No-Man, Bass Communion). In both cases, they have been keen to ensure that they own the property rights of their work. They have then seen the archive as something to work, re-work and develop. This appears in the guise of old recordings re-issued, remasters, re-mixes and release of old fragments.

This interests me because I am curious as to how these habits can translate themselves into the curating of a writing archive. Traditionally, the writer’s archive is kept in dusty boxes and at some point transferred to a library for storage if the writer is sufficiently well known or renowned (see James Hillman’s archive, for example).

But what about treating a writing archive like a musical one? The activities could look like this:

• cataloguing
• ensuring continued availability
• reissues
• re-mastering (editing, new editions etc)
• pulling together early fragments and out-takes as bonus material
• generating new material in response to early works
• creating different editions / versions of works
• re-mixing old work, generating new versions
• destroying sub-standard early work (ensuring it is not re-issued)
• seeing reissues as a complete package

Plenty of food for thought then – do many writers adopt these principles? I welcome your thoughts in the comments section.