In “Living Archives at Scale,” Anto Lloveras delivers a sophisticated review-based theoretical synthesis that shifts archival discourse from preservation to metabolism. Drawing on Michelle Caswell’s reparative ethics, Ted Underwood’s computational scale, Nick Seaver’s algorithmic critique, David Beer’s metric temporality, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s experimental systems, the paper proposes five operational concepts — archival metabolism, scalar grammar, strategic porosity, differentiated speed, and stable nucleus/plastic periphery — as a practical design grammar for contemporary corpora. Socioplastics itself serves as the central case study: a 3,000-node, DOI-anchored, dual-address (human + machine) field that demonstrates how abundance can be digested without collapse. The argument is both diagnostic and constructive: archives must learn to ingest, orient, expose selectively, slow certain elements, and maintain interpretive richness amid algorithmic mediation. This is not metaphorical language but an applied architectural framework for post-digital scholarship. The paper stands as a major contribution to knowledge infrastructure studies, offering scholars, digital humanists, and cultural institutions a subtle yet robust vocabulary for building systems that remain alive, navigable, and ethically continuous at scale.
Lloveras, A. (2026) ‘Living Archives at Scale: Reparative Care, Scalar Grammar and the Metabolism of Post-Digital Knowledge Infrastructures’, Socioplastics Research Papers. LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.