Read on Twitter
free time and dreams being taken up with how to make the physical space of the archive real to students who can't leave their homes. the dust from Steedman's Dust is abstract. the ppl that digitize and maintain online surrogates are abstract. the buildings are abstract.
how do you make real what is inaccessible? do i ask archivists to film their workspace and objects we're seeing online? do i interview folks about what it's like to work in archives? do i give up materiality and go hard on digital (which feels wrong b/c the books exist)
much of my work in archives is embodied -- freezing in 2 cardigans while i hurriedly work through texts, smelling old book smell and breathing in the dust, having tea at the Folger and awkwardly trying to talk to the staff i'm there to meet, spending hours managing images after 5
and much of my work is online, learning how to sweet talk EEBO and ECCO into giving up their files and then figuring out what i can and cannot do with them. we can do that, but doing so without ever seeing the space that made that surrogate possible feels like half the story
