Traces

While reading "Traces," very appropriately named I might add, I found it interesting in Freud's writings that our internal make-up as far as memory and how we process/store thoughts is the same. We are each equipped with what Freud refers to as Pcpti-C's and mnemic systems. It seems to be this "sameness" so to speak, that contributes to our own unique identities in terms of how we process information and how we "classify" it depending upon the severity of how it relates to us. With that said, it would be hard for any archive to fully be a direct correlation of the past because the individual or institution assembling is going to have a bias, whether conscious or unconscious, depending on what it is they're hoping to accomplish, want to remember, and/or feel is relevant to the recreation of a history. Archives are an indication, a signifier of the past. They ultimately "signify identity" as Boltanski puts it. So, why then? Why try and signify the past with physical indications when your memory according to Freud is designed to "archive" for you? I think it has to do with the visual interaction/participation that stems from the objects chosen. The objects were chosen for a specific reason because of their tangible ability to recreate a memory, a thought, a time, a place, a trace of the past.