When the dead help the living - archives and databases: the print and digital media; the witness and the archive

This paper will focus on the exhibition When the Dead Help the Living, presented at Light Projects, Melbourne, in April 2011. It consisted of work by two London-based and two Melbourne-based artists - Jordan Baseman and Si Sapsford, Damiano Bertoli and myself, Kim Wise, respectively- addressing ideas of testimony, the witness and the archive through the use of digital media and, in particular, digital video. Perhaps somewhat perversely in the context of this conference, this paper will focus on the digital video works presented and will exclude the digital prints by Sapsford.