“Archive” usually implies neutral storage. This archive will be relational – but not explicitly so. There will be a layer of empirical data, a limited amount. I feel that it’s necessary to include that layer for various reasons.
- A place cannot be experienced from nowhere. Empirical data about Hastings – particularly that directly associated to my walks (duration, distance, longitude, latitude, weather etc) isn’t separate from my experience of the town, it’s part of the situation I am experiencing it from. Including it will ground my creative output
- Empirical data is evidence of measuring, and, referring (loosely) to Barad’s theory of Intra-action, measuring are part of how my walks, my encounters come to exist as a knowable thing: measuring is tangled up with the place
- Empirical data is one of the ways that Hastings as a collaborator can “speak” for itself, that isn’t just me interpreting it. Tide patterns, temperature, people passed on the walk are facts independent of my perception
- Adding cold stats, empirical data next to a personal, felt description creates a friction that could be more interesting than just the one element alone
- Empiricial data will keep me grounded – it will let me balance the lived experience against hard data
