PUBLIC RECORD

The preservation, celebration, and archival of important online works is a growing issue for creators and communities. In every corner of the internet, there are impactful releases that contributed to shaping culture in significant and subtle ways: art, memes, ideas, and more. However, for every platform that ends, or link that breaks,  the long term hosting and upkeep of these works become more precarious.  

Given the abundance of influential information, ideas, and media distributed for free, it can be difficult to archive and celebrate the impact of canonical pieces of internet history. However, there are several creative projects that have successfully archived works as pieces of internet history. Here are some examples:

What creators and metalabels can learn from Factory Records

"The most significant decision has been deciding to be a startup for culture rather than a for-profit maximizer at all costs."

After The Creator Economy is a limited-edition zine exploring constructive alternatives for the ways we produce, distribute, and monetize creative work online.

"When Chim↑Pom formed there weren't other collectives in Japan, and there wasn't this definition of a 'collective.' The word itself didn't really exist."

"It was a surreal experience for me. I've never done anything like it."

"I feel happiest and strongest when I'm in community with people and they're willing to be in community with me. Not that we agree or that we like each other, but that we're actually choosing to connect around this idea that joy and power come from investment in oneself, but also in our surroundings. I was frantically calling all these people around me to be like, 'Hey, let's just be together, have you thought about what would happen?'" — Hank Willis Thomas

"Where post-consensus really works is when people have been used to working collaboratively. Often people confuse consensus and cooperation with collaboration. When XR works best is when it realizes that it's a creative project. Because people understand that people have certain skills and you collaborate: you bring in a photographer, you work with someone who works in metal or fabric because it's not your specialism, you understand that you have applied ideation process which is then interpreted by other people, and you get used to giving freedom to other people because they will interpret something and make it better. You appreciate that alchemical quality that you can only get when you let go of things, when you hand something on to someone else."

"I don't think the collective is served by an erasure of individuality. I think it's essential to be both an individual and part of a group. For collaboration to be sound, there should be an ability to exist both within and without the group — to toggle between and to freely move between."

We introduced metalabels in February of 2022, and have continued to explore the form since with a series of drops, events, and dozens of interviews with groups who operate using metalabel-like models. Public Record presents the things we’ve learned and continue to learn in that process, exploring where the form might go.

“There was a frustration as a sole founder, fully independent, without co-founders. I mean it’s fun, but it’s also kind of lonely.”