c-host

Digital Archiving Portfolio

Hello, I'm Michael Baldwin (maintainer of the c-host project) and this is my digital archiving portfolio.

I am a multidisciplinary artist and researcher based in Tbilisi, Georgia, working at the intersection of digital archives, preservation, governance, experimental media, and participatory infrastructure design.

My practice focuses on how communities steward memory online: not only through preservation, but also through intentional transformation, decay, and loss.

Below is a selection of my work across these fields, including research themes, projects, writings, and presentations.

OPEN TO COLLABORATION & ROLES:

I am seeking to build on my contributions to archival and governance ecosystems through deeper institutional and practical engagement in digital archiving work.

I bring experience in program design, artistic curation, community management, and project management across distributed teams

If you are hiring or looking for a collaborator in digital archiving, preservation, or community-governed knowledge systems, I would love to connect.

[email me] [download cv]

RESEARCH & PRACTICE THEMES:

  • Community-governed archives

    Designing archives as participatory systems where stewardship, moderation, and collection governance are shared practices.

  • Digital preservation and intentional loss

    Investigating archival mortality and lifecycle thinking in digital collections, including when and how information should transform or disappear.

  • Audiovisual and oral-history infrastructure

    Supporting memory transmission through recordings, documentation workflows, and interfaces for public access and interpretation.

  • Metadata and information stewardship

    Building practical familiarity with archival description and collection standards while implementing web interfaces for access.

SELECTED PROJECTS:

  • Dineba: Community Digital Archive Interface
    [site] [repo] [exhibition documentation]

    A community-driven digital archive project in Tbilisi, Georgia focused on the country's ecological landscape. I contribute to the archive interface and infrastructure that supports public memory, local stewardship, and collective curation of materials.

    The project is currently powered by my custom-built flow-composer, connecting Internet Archive collections to a governance-aware presentation layer. In the future it will migrate to the open-source archive-display software Omeka S.

    Dineba interface screenshot
  • Digital Archive Composter and Hospicer
    [site] [repo] [research essay]

    An interactive web application based on independent research that explores archives designed not for preservation, but for intentional transformation and loss.

    This project frames digital archiving as a lifecycle practice, centering preservation ethics, temporal archives, and care for digital remains.

    Digital Archive Composter and Hospicer interface screenshot
  • PhD Thesis: Documents and/of/as Musicking Bodies
    [thesis]

    This doctoral work studies the creative application of music performance documentation, with implications for embodied archives, ephemerality, and interpretation as a preservation process.

    It contributes to my archival approach by treating recordings, notations, and performances as evolving documents in a wider ecology of memory transmission.

ADJACENT WORK:

  • Digital Governance and Community Infrastructure
    [fellowship] [redwood parliament]

    As a community manager, fellowship and project coordinator at Metagov (2022-2026), I designed and coordinated participatory governance programs and events, including Redwood Parliament at DWeb Camp and the Governable Space Makers Fellowship.

    This work informs my archival practice through experience with facilitation, governance design, and stewardship of shared digital spaces and communities.

  • Bagh / ბაღ
    [site] [repo]

    Bagh is a Georgian language verb resource with searchable entries, conjugation tables, deterministic example generation, gloss/case analysis, and linked morphology diagrams.

    While not a public memory archive, this work extends my archival practice into language preservation infrastructure through structured data stewardship, discoverability, and long-term maintainability.

    Bagh interface screenshot

TECHNICAL & ARCHIVAL LEARNING:

  • Current tools and workflows

    Internet Archive APIs, Git/GitHub, and Omeka S.

  • Currently studying

    Dublin Core and related metadata practices through hands-on archival platform work. Participation in Community Webs.

WRITINGS, REFLECTIONS, & PRESENTATIONS:

  • Only Loss
    [essay] [presentation]

    On archival loss, digital mortality, and stewardship practices in states of perpetual bereavement. Presentation given with collaborater Sarah Wambold as part of the Practices of Composting and Hospicing series.

  • Humans as Living Archives
    [blog/interview]

    Reflections on bodies, performance, and memory as archival infrastructure.

  • The DWeb Long Echo: Reflections from Redwood Parliament
    [reflection]

    Field notes on participatory governance practices at DWeb Camp 2022.

  • Personal Blog
    [blog]

    A personal blog of essays, notes and reflections across my wider field of research and practice.