Prototyping the Archival Ephemeral: Experimental Interfaces for the Edwin Morgan Scrapbooks

Abstract

This paper introduces two digital prototypes, the Colour Collage and the Constellation visualizations, which we developed to represent eight pages from the scrapbooks of Scottish Poet Makar Edwin Morgan (1920–2010). We understand these prototypes as experiments within our research through design process, rather than as stand-alone digital objects, and so this article presents the theoretical pursuits and design decisions that motivated, and were motivated by, these prototypes. We begin by establishing our theoretical framework, which focuses on the roles of inscription technologies in archives and is guided by Bruno Latour’s concept of a mediator (1993). We then discuss scrapbooks as polyvocal and hybrid mediators, which are nonetheless often pushed to the fringes of reading practices and material histories. In unpacking the fringe status of the Morgan scrapbooks in particular, we outline the copyright restrictions that complicate their digital publication. Reconceptualizing these restrictions as creative constraints, our prototypes experiment with forms of representation that go beyond the facsimile, drawing on detailed metadata and generating new visualizations that are inspired by the scrapbooks’ materially-specific grammars. Our aim with these prototypes is to open the scrapbooks to new forms of play and discoverability in online contexts, while using digital tools and methodologies to better understand the scrapbooks’ multifaceted modes of meaning creation. We conclude by discussing some of our prototypes’ limitations, as well as future directions for our research through design process for the Morgan Scrapbooks.