Avoiding the Archive

During my time as an archives student I made a studious practice of avoiding being a part of any archive. At conferences and events I avoided being photographed as if it were stealing my soul. I had the sixth sense to know when a photographer was nearby, and at just the right moment I would step out of frame or shift positions to be behind someone else in the picture.

When we were asked to submit our classwork to the department repository, I did my best Bartleby and conveniently forgot to send things in. Repeatedly.

Why did I do this? For one thing I had a perverse / sarcastic / semi-serious that that I shouldn’t be involved in what I was studying. I was keeping myself and my field of study pure that way.

For another thing, I was a punk ass fool.

Thirdly I wanted to be a ghost and leave no imprint, to be able to float away and take up my temporary haunting elsewhere whenever I chose to. No impressions, no fingerprints, no tethers. Archives document, make a lasting record, and I thought I could escape that, little aware in my strict philosophy of the archive of the human mind.