12/02/2021 I feel weird
I don't exactly know why I'm writing today. I just feel a bit weird. I feel inspired, but I don't know towards what. I think I'm eager to get started with the theory class that started today.
Anik told us we will be busy with archiving and that really excites me. We will be working with the Sonsbeek archive and I have a sense that I will really enjoy this. Anik also told us she is in charge of the archive at her other job (If I can dance). I want to ask her for an internship.
It's a weird sensation, I feel incredibly tired and energized and excited at the same time. Not sure where to channel this.
The thing that excites me when thinking about archiving is to investigate master narratives (in the way Jonas Staal described this term).
What story are we telling through the archive, and what reality is that narrative producing?
What image (of humanity, culture, art, time, or even the specific event) is this version of the story perpetuating?
What other stories could we find hidden in the archives?
Could we manifest a sense of a caring community or a sense of collective care through another way of archiving the same materials?
Also, I wonder about the power of the archive.
The hegemonic qualities and the colonialist
connotations I'm feeling when thinking about
this.
Politically, what does it mean to archive from the perspective of a white, European person?
Does that change if the archivist is female? (Is the act of archiving then suddenly feminist?)
Does that change if the archivist is queer?
Does that change if the archivist is an artist?
And what if that artist is a white male?
And what if that artist is not a white male?
Does that change if the archivist is disabled?

Is it the identity of the archivist, and the power relations involved in the act of archiving that which excites me so?

Should I ask Anik about an internship?

Should I be an archivist?
Am I already an archivist?

The thing is, I don't think I'm interested in archiving a specific thing,
I think I'm interested in archiving as an act within itself.

Isn't that what I attempted to do in 'I Promise I've been Productive'?
Isn't that what I attempted to do during the Sol Archer project with 'Lost and Found in Translation'?
And isn't that what I'm trying to do with the face masks, pulsatilla vulgaris, and 'Please don't infect the artist' collaborations?

Is my oeuvre in a sense, just an archive of experiences, collected and manufactured from my perspective?

Is that also why my films are more collections of footage than edited films?

And isn't that also what the sweater is, that I'm knitting with my mother?

Slightly unrelated, but not really, is, what shall I do with my artistic research? I feel I need a wall, but since I don't feel safe at school, I need an alternative, and I wonder if a digital format will work.
(Like Hotglue)