The Archive is the collection of all material traces left behind by a particular historical period and culture which one can use to deduce a historical a priori.
Archive is a kind of thought in which the eye goes beyond things to visibilities and language goes beyond words to utterances.
A Catalog is a little store that arrives by mail until we have a shopping mall where our living room used to be.
Classification is that which can take strange forms with no coherent linkage: Such as a list of animals divided by (a) belonging to the emperor (b) embalmed (c) innumerable (d) suckling pigs (e) having just broken the water pitcher.
A Collection is dead when it is a collection to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be removed!.
A Collection is always more than is necessary. It is a material concentrate that continually stimulates, that overexcites because it is already too much. The collector's need is precisely for excess, for surfeit, for profusion. It's too much and it's just enough for the collector.
12 concepts in this pillow book.