Paradiso might be the most famous venue of the Netherlands. Archive Paradiso aims to collect and investigate their musical heritage. An example: In 1995, Keith Richards claimed to have a long-term relationship with the venue.

Keith Richards: (...) And the crowd was great, and then the Paradiso, I feel like I've.. I used to live there, (laughs)

Journalist: Really?

KR: Yeah, off and on..

Journalist: But you've never played there before.

KR: Yeah, I know, but we used to hang there, (laughs)

Journalist: When was that ?

KR: Oh, through the sixties.. before you were born.

It is questionable if Keith Richards really used to hang out in Paradiso. Is subjective storytelling and exchanging of memories to be called history? We think so. These kind of stories, usually somewhat longer then Keith's, make history entertaining and personal. As individuals, we like to relate to these kind of memories. You know, back in the days... That is why our project team is convinced that the audience should become an active player in the realisation of Paradiso's archive. They ultimately have the key to make this archive dynamic and interesting, by adding their views and stories: enter new media.

Content

Concert posters back from the sixties until now will form the core collection of Archive Paradiso: they represent dates, artists, graphic styles and subcultures. Later on, other objects will be added. Like pictures, setlists, flyers, comments, tags, articles, etcetera. Formal archives combined with the input of users. All to be used, added and played with by music lovers, journalists, researches as well as graphic designers and other possibly interested parties. How to bring all of this together? New media can be the perfect solution for these seemingly unused cultural archives.

Open source

While working on this huge project, we thought: why not make the research process open source too? Especially when there are no risks involved! So we started a blog about our process. And we set up a wiki for all the information we gather. Unfortunately, because this is a graduation project, we can't open up our wiki for everyone to use just yet. But we are idealists: by presenting an example, we hope to encourage other cultural institutions (and especially venues) to do the same with their archives. Ideas should be free.