The book expresses a confidence in claiming for archival discourse previously unentered terrains. Johnson debunks the idea of a top down leadership and sheds light on the emergence of the self-organizing systems in our society. What connection can i draw between Steven Johnsons 'The Myth of the ant Queen' and Oliver Sacks 'The Minds Eye: what the blind see in order to propose a claim based on that connectionThe Myth of the Ant Queen by Steven Johnson was an interesting essay on complexsystems. Collectively the contributors demonstrate the degree to which thinking about archives is embracing new realities and new possibilities. In his essay 'The Myth of the Ant Queen,' Steven Johnson seemingly disregards the notion of pacemaker, labeling it as fake and a myth. In his contribution, Jacques Derrida (an instantly recognisable name in intellectual discourse worldwide) shows how remembering can never be separated from forgetting, and argues that the archive is about the future rather than the past. The contributors to this book question this orthodoxy, unfolding the ways in which archives construct, sanctify, and bury pasts. Such as the example of the ants all doing their little jobs that may seem.
It is so true how every part of a complex system has its own way of working and it doesn’t need any one or thing to tell it how to do its job. Traditionally archives have been seen as preserving memory and as holding the past. The Myth of the Ant Queen by Steven Johnson was an interesting essay on complex systems. It brings together prominent thinkers from a range of disciplines, mainly South Africans but a number from other countries. Refiguring the Archive at once expresses cutting-edge debates on `the archive' in South Africa and internationally, and pushes the boundaries of those debates.