Kameelah Janan Rasheed on Research and Archiving

I use the word hypertext because of Octavia Butler. She was interviewed around 1996 about hypertext. The guy who was speaking to her asked what she thought about the internet and what she thought about hypertext. She was like, “Oh, I don’t really use the internet like that, but I do believe in primitive hypertext.” It means that as she creates mate... See more

A research-driven artwork generally progresses in three stages. At the beginning, it’s about having the intention to explore an idea, and then (you guessed it) researching that idea. The middle stage focuses on moving and shaping an idea as you learn and explore. This part of the process is gray, beautiful, and middling—you have to follow where the... See more

Del.icio.us made us realize the importance of archiving casual web (and other) research. That process has a lot of positive effects that are hard to explain until you’ve built a habit out of it. For one, there’s a self-discovery that happens when you revisit things you’ve accumulated over a period of time. You look back and begin to recognize patte... See more

Who is doing this kind of research as leisure activity? Artists, often. To return to the site that originally inspired this post—I’d say that the artist/designer/educator Laurel Schwulst uses Are.na to develop and refine particular themes, directions, topics of inquiry...some of which become artworks or essays or classes that she teaches.

People wh... See more