@ -19,10 +19,12 @@ Talking Documents are performative bureaucratic text inspections that intend to
Central element of this project is a seven-act scenario that construct my personal paperwork story, unraveling the actual struggles of my communication with the government. The body of the text of the “theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents, email threads as well as recordings of the conversations with the municipality of Rotterdam I documented and archived throughout this period. I preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the graphic design of the initial forms, I structured and repurposed the text into a playable scenario.
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I perceive the document as a unit and as the fundamental symbolic interface of the bureaucratic network. The transformation of the materiality of a document into a scenario to be enacted collectively in public aims to examine these artifacts and highlight the shrouded performative elements of these processes.
@ -185,8 +185,6 @@ I started working and engaging more with different bureaucratic material that my
These 'rituals' are components of a larger “culture of evidence”, serving as a tool that blurs the distinction between discourse and reality (Cunningham, 2017). This culture of evidence influences how people perceive and understand information. The primary purposes of these metrics are twofold: they play a role in the marketing sphere, attracting potential students to the university as well as they are utilized in interactions and negotiations with the government, which increasingly cuts budgets allocated to universities.
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@ -203,8 +201,6 @@ These 'rituals' are components of a larger “culture of evidence”, serving as
**Reflections-Thoughts:** Beyond the information gathered through my bureaucratic-like questionnaires, the most crucial element of this experiment was the understanding and highlighting of the hidden performative elements that entrench these “rituals”. It was amazing seeing the audience becoming instantly actors of the play enacting willingly a administrative ritualistic scene.
The provided context of this “play” was a social library hosting a masters course public event on graduation projects. I am wondering whether this asymphony between the repetitive bureaucratic acts within the space of Leeszaal, where such acts are not expected to be performed, evoked contradictory feelings or thoughts. Over-identifying with a role was being instrumentalized as an “interrogation” of one’s own involvement in the reproduction of social discourses, power, authority, hegemony.
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@ -227,8 +223,6 @@ The provided context of this “play” was a social library hosting a masters c
We read the embedded signs, symbols, categories, texts, magical numbers in our passports that construct our profiles. Seeing someone's passport, ID cards, visas, travel documents might mean that you are able to understand how easy or not is for them to move, what are their travel paths, how departure or arrival is smooth or cruel. Are there emotions along the way? For some people these are documents “that embody power — minimal or no waiting, peaceful departure, warm and confident arrival” (Khosravi, 2021).
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@ -246,8 +240,6 @@ The first and the last moment of the performance was during a semi-public tryout
**Reflections-Thoughts:** Vocalizing and embodying the bureaucratic questions was quite useful in acknowledging the government’s voice and presence as something tangible rather than a floating, arbitrary entity. It was interesting observing the bureaucrats performing their role with confidence and entitlement, contrasting with the applicants who appeared to be more stressed to respond convincingly and promptly. There is a notable distinction between performativity and performance. Performing consciously and theatrically amplifying real bureaucratic texts by occupying roles and overidentifying with them can constitute a diffractive moment, a tool itself. From bureaucratic text to performative text scenarios to speech. The embedded (but rather unconscious) performativity of “real” bureaucratic rituals establishes and empowers (bureaucratic) institutions through repetitive acts. These theatrical moments attempt to highlight the shrouded performative elements of these processes.
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As a young person in the publishing sector, I believe there should be more options for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But moreover a "book" that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with... So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and called it, "Bee Within".
@ -41,6 +43,8 @@ I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it multiple times over the past ye
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Over the past two years, experimenting with storytelling techniques, interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within, I improved the story to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all children.
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alt="Leeszaal West Rotterdam - November 2023 – People queuing to receive their documents and sign. I was thinking of queues as a spatial oppressive tool used often by (bureaucratic) authorities. The naturalized image of bodies-in-a-line waiting for “something” to happen at “some point” under the public gaze in an efficiently defined area." />
@ -1751,7 +1749,6 @@ paths, how departure or arrival is smooth or cruel. Are there emotions
along the way? For some people these are documents “that embody power —
minimal or no waiting, peaceful departure, warm and confident arrival”
alt="A6 booklet of the first chapter of the “theatrical” scenario created out of the Postal Address Application documents and performed by XPUB peers" />
@ -1968,12 +1964,28 @@ of Rotterdam I documented and archived throughout this period. I
preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the
graphic design of the initial forms, I structured and repurposed the
alt="Page of the final book containing scans of the edited book, an instruction card, a pen-plotted bookmark with a quote from the book and a sprig of mint." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Page of the final book containing scans
of the edited book, an instruction card, a pen-plotted bookmark with a
quote from the book and a sprig of mint.</figcaption>
@ -22,15 +22,16 @@ Like community gardens, libraries are about tenderness and approachability. Howe
The release of the Special Issue 19 was a momentary snapshot of the current state of a library seen through the metaphor of gardening; pruning, gleaning, growing, grafting and harvesting. Garden Leeszaal is an open conversation; a collective writing tool, a cooperative collage and an archive. We asked everyone to think of the library as a garden. For us, being a gardener means caring; caring for the people and books that form this space.
During the collective moment in Leeszaal people started diving into recycle bins, grabbing books, tearing pages apart, drawing, pen plotting, weaving words together, cutting words, removing words, overwriting, printing, and scanning. It was magical having an object in the end. A whole book was made by all of us that evening. Stations, machines, a cloud of cards, a sleeve that warms up THE BOOK.
During the collective moment in Leeszaal people started diving into recycle bins, grabbing books, tearing pages apart, drawing, pen plotting, weaving words together, cutting words, removing words, overwriting, printing, and scanning. It was magical having an object in the end. A whole book was made by all of us that evening. Stations, machines, a cloud of cards, a sleeve that warms up the book.
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@ -38,6 +39,7 @@ During the collective moment in Leeszaal people started diving into recycle bins
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