Spring 2021 Spotlight:
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Interview with Sarah Minor
Caryl Pagel
7.2
The “betrayal of how things are designed” is a perfect phrase, and I think it’s true that attempts to unpack the inner workings of (power?) structures is a gesture the essays in Bright Archive share. By “structures”’ I’m also thinking about the myriad scaffolds, systems, institutions, and processes that seem “natural” to us but were once deliberately designed based on a list of specific intentions. To say it very generally, I think whenever we can reveal both that and how something was made, then the structure and the ideas it was based on become open for reassessment. To say it specifically, when I begin writing it is often because I have a sense that something is wrong but I can’t quite name it. Click here to continue reading.
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Interview with David Shields
Julija Šukys
7.2
The book began with my having the bright idea of looking up every interview I ever did, going back to my first book in 1984. I quickly realized I wasn’t interested anymore in my answers. But the questions intrigued me: the passive-aggression of the questions. So I gathered all 2,700 questions, which I culled and curated down to 1,700, and I poured these questions into silos or rubrics or chapters.
So, too, I hugely rewrote and reconceived and remixed and reinvented the questions. I barely remember how many if any are based on the original questions and how many are my own inventions. For the longest time the book was, as you say, Julija, a bit of a prank or lark or one-off experiment: Hey, what happens if I play around with all of these questions? Click here to continue reading. |