"Hang the DJ" an Archontic Text

Imagine a world defined by the search for an ultimate match through a series of "expiration date" relationships guided by a digital coach. That is the world that Amy and Frank live in in the episode of Black Mirror titled "Hang the DJ."

These temporary short term and long term relationships serve a purpose. They are meant to gain information on each individual for the system. This information will ultimately be used to find perfect pairs.

An archive is the "documentation of the previously-happened, a record of the has-been" (Booth, 2009, p.385) that "is never closed. It opens out of the future" (Booth, 2009, p.377).

An archontic text is a text that allows, or even invites, writers to enter it, select specific items they find useful, make new artifacts using those found objects and deposit the newly made work back into the source text’s archive” (Booth, 2009, p. 373).

The system stores all the information about individuals from each relationship. Every interaction, whether physical, verbal, emotive, etc. is used to build a profile on each person. These profiles can be taken, paired, and brought into the world using the system’s coach.

Frank and Amy go through a series of relationships of varying lengths. They are each other’s first relationship in the system. After their relationship expires, they are each paired with new people in longer term relationships. Frank knows immediately that this new match is not for him, but the coach reassured him that it is all a part of the system’s process. Frank is not able to control the length or match of his relationships, the system has complete control as the author of his narrative.

The coach is the writer of each archontic text, relationship, stored in the archive, system. It uses information in the archive, picks what it wants, pairs, and puts this new relationship back into the system. All for the purpose of learning more about each individual.

As Frank and Amy progress through the process and are paired once again, they start to become more aware of the archive. No longer is the archive a storage of moments hidden from the present, but an archive 3.0.

Archive 3.0: objects are no longer treated as “moments torn from continuity of past actions. What is archivable does not necessarily lose its presence in the present” (Dougherty and Schneider, p. 259).

Frank and Amy have this feeling of deja vu or familiarity of each other outside the system. Although they do not know where they were or what they did, they know they existed together.

At the end of the episode, Frank and Amy decide to break out of the system by climbing over the wall. In doing this they are taking control of the archive and becoming the author of their narrative or archontic text.

The system that is revealed to have been a series of 1000 simulations within a dating app, becomes an archive of information that Frank and Amy have access to in order to form their own relationship.