attic-archive.digital: Collaboratively developed web platform for reconnecting The Attic Archive

TY - ADVS

T1 - attic-archive.digital

T2 - Collaboratively developed web platform for reconnecting The Attic Archive

A2 - Bodor, Judit

A2 - Hunter, Roddy

N1 - This Output is part of an MCO in progress

PY - 2026

Y1 - 2026

N2 - The Attic Archive was established by artist Pete Horobin in the attic flat of 37 Union Street, Dundee, Scotland, in 1975 as a self-historicisation project ultimately documenting an artist's everyday life through work produced under four different identities, namely Pete Horobin (1980-89), Marshall Anderson (1990-99), Peter Haining (2000-09), and aitch (2010-19). Catalysed by Pete Horobin's mail art practice through which he corresponded with artists across the world, exchanging and creating artworks through the postal system, The Attic Archive engaged with archiving and documenting as ways of making artwork that now chronicle and reflect the changing social and cultural conditions of the 1970s-2020s, particularly in urban and rural Scotland and Ireland. The web platform attic-archive.digital provides a portal to access the archive's now dispersed collections across Scotland, Hungary, Ireland, and elsewhere, as well as to engage with new work and research emerging from a reinvestigation of the archive's contemporary relevance for new audiences and its underacknowledged contribution to contemporary art practice internationally. It is a free/libre open-source, user-generated archive built and maintained by an open and inclusive network of care of artists, archivists, curators, and researchers internationally who use the platform to share work, correspondence and ephemera related to the archive. The web platform is developed by a research network led by Dr Judit Bodor (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee) and Dr Roddy Hunter (The Glasgow School of Art), featuring partners including the University of Dundee Archive Services, the National Library of Scotland, Artpool Art Research Center at the Central European Institute for Art History (KEMKI), Budapest, and the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. The platform was designed and developed by vo ezn using the open-source content management system and framework ProcessWire. The Digital Attic Archive is funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Network Award. This web platform created collaboratively and using open-source software is the primary Output and the means through which the Curating The Digital Attic MCO is disseminated. The platform is a non-proprietary, para-institutional platform developed collaboratively with archivists across Ireland, Scotland and Hungary to reconnect the physically dispersed Attic Archive. The approach taken to developing the platform aligns with the archive's development as an autonomous artistic practice. The platform is developed curatorially through a network of care. The web-platform was soft-launched in May 2026 as part of the event History/Reality 4: From the Garden of Communication to the Dark Forest of the Internet, an event organised in the context of the exhibition archivuminternetwork, thus also connecting two MCOs developed by Bodor (Curating The Digital Attic and Excavating Artpool.hu)

AB - The Attic Archive was established by artist Pete Horobin in the attic flat of 37 Union Street, Dundee, Scotland, in 1975 as a self-historicisation project ultimately documenting an artist's everyday life through work produced under four different identities, namely Pete Horobin (1980-89), Marshall Anderson (1990-99), Peter Haining (2000-09), and aitch (2010-19). Catalysed by Pete Horobin's mail art practice through which he corresponded with artists across the world, exchanging and creating artworks through the postal system, The Attic Archive engaged with archiving and documenting as ways of making artwork that now chronicle and reflect the changing social and cultural conditions of the 1970s-2020s, particularly in urban and rural Scotland and Ireland. The web platform attic-archive.digital provides a portal to access the archive's now dispersed collections across Scotland, Hungary, Ireland, and elsewhere, as well as to engage with new work and research emerging from a reinvestigation of the archive's contemporary relevance for new audiences and its underacknowledged contribution to contemporary art practice internationally. It is a free/libre open-source, user-generated archive built and maintained by an open and inclusive network of care of artists, archivists, curators, and researchers internationally who use the platform to share work, correspondence and ephemera related to the archive. The web platform is developed by a research network led by Dr Judit Bodor (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee) and Dr Roddy Hunter (The Glasgow School of Art), featuring partners including the University of Dundee Archive Services, the National Library of Scotland, Artpool Art Research Center at the Central European Institute for Art History (KEMKI), Budapest, and the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. The platform was designed and developed by vo ezn using the open-source content management system and framework ProcessWire. The Digital Attic Archive is funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Network Award. This web platform created collaboratively and using open-source software is the primary Output and the means through which the Curating The Digital Attic MCO is disseminated. The platform is a non-proprietary, para-institutional platform developed collaboratively with archivists across Ireland, Scotland and Hungary to reconnect the physically dispersed Attic Archive. The approach taken to developing the platform aligns with the archive's development as an autonomous artistic practice. The platform is developed curatorially through a network of care. The web-platform was soft-launched in May 2026 as part of the event History/Reality 4: From the Garden of Communication to the Dark Forest of the Internet, an event organised in the context of the exhibition archivuminternetwork, thus also connecting two MCOs developed by Bodor (Curating The Digital Attic and Excavating Artpool.hu)

KW - open source infrastructure

KW - Open source platform

KW - web platform

KW - Attic Archive

M3 - Digital or Visual Products

ER -