CONTEXT 2:
The Archive Project

I have been looking at different archives in unit 2, primarily due to the collaboration project with the Computational Arts pathway. We have been introduced to different art projects that based on historical, virtual and internet archives, as well as ways to get access to them. We were also encouraged to start our own archive and make work from it. In the second session, CA Pathway Leader Max Dovey introduced us to the idea of Oulipo, which is a process of writing by imposing multiple restrictions to it. He then encouraged us to take the spirit of Oulipo and create our own “impromptu” dataset, which is to create a rule and follow it to collect data from an environment. I am really connected to this spirit of working. Developing from my unit 1 work, I have actually been collecting screen recordings of the Abbey Road surveillance camera footage, every day at 12pm since the beginning of 2024. I have built up a database of people crossing/posing at the crossing made famous by Beatles with one of their CD covers. Max’s sharing gives context to what I have been doing. I plan to use this database to continue exploring the concept of surveillance, spectacle and tableau vivant.

I also went to the Women's Art Archive at Goldsmith University because of this project. Many of the artworks there were impressive, such as those under the mail art movement, as female artists sent postcards inscribed with poems, drawings or collages through mail (pun intended). I was particular drawn to the work by Lucy X, a female artist who got married with "her art" at Camberwell. The bridegroom was literally a postcard stand with postcards of prominent male artists' work. I really like the humour and irony of the performance work. It also inspires me to do a research on other female artists that “get married" with objects. I found out a few, with their bridegrooms to be a shirt, a rock, or even a hologram. I wonder if we can look at these objects as an archive, and possibly imagine a conversation between these  "husbands" of female artists.