Page 123 - The Black Box Book

Figure 3: Black Box (2020).
ARCHIVE: FK GROTESK MONOSPACE Detail of pull-out bases. Retrieved from
https://cerna-skrinka.cz/curators
Another graphic element of the website are the pull-out tabs inspired
by cataloguing tickets, which are used in physical archives to organize
metadata records about stored archival materials. The aesthetics of cat- The textual content on the website is stored on several sliding pages,
alogue labels is also incorporated into the website’s visual appearance in uncharacteristically placed horizontally on the right side of the website,
the choice of the FK Grotesk Monospace font, whose design is remi- where they peek out like paper cards from an open file drawer. The web
niscent of technical archival records. The website’s visual appearance user can click on them to expand them to cover the whole computer
was based on working with this font in different variations. The graphic screen and read their contents.
designer designed different font sizes for different levels of the site and There are numerous pull-out tabs on the website’s homepage
set the writing style in lower or upper case. The black technical font on (https://cerna-skrinka.cz/): About, Curators, and Theory. Then there are
a white background resembles a technical drawing showing the relation- the Curator 01 and Curator 02 tabs, which detail the two methods used
ships between stored items while evoking the environment of an archive, to manage the digital archive. In later phases of the project, tabs for
especially its technical background in the form of austere, systematically the Curating Online symposia series were added to the website’s footer
arranged filing cabinets. However, the inspiration for the physical archive bar. Most recently, a bookmark was added to the site for the book you
was only a starting point for thinking about the current forms of archives are currently reading.
on the web and digital environment. It manifested in how information was The functional features for user navigation and control of the website
sorted into folders, the numbering of items, or the alphabetical lists of were likewise designed with a minimalist aesthetic. They consist only of
works stored on the web. an arrow symbol, which, depending on the location and situation, performs
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