October 1999

Memory_Archive_Database v 3.0¹ By Steve Dietz In 1968, in a report to the Rockefeller Foundation during a residency at SUNY Stony Brook, Nam June Paik argued that 97% of all electronic music was not recorded and that "a simple measure would solve the whole problem. An information center for unpublished electronic media should be created."² Of course, at the time, this meant such a center would "provide a xerox copy and a tape copy of musical pieces, at the request of performers, students, and organizers from all over the world." Still, convert analog to digital, and the dream lives on, perhaps more vibrant than ever, of a universal archive, with access to everything by anyone anywhere at anytime.