Archive Inferno

Season 2 examines Administrative Affect, thinking through how affect circulates within systems of administration, law, and cultural production. Our readings trace how the archive extends into bureaucratic language, parasitic behaviour, and the psychic immobilities of contemporary life.

This season our reading will centre on four key texts producing a constellation of concept that expands the archive into the spaces of legislation, parasitic behaviour and collective psychological repression. To achieve this we will read Cornelia Vismann, Post Brothers and Chris Fitzpatrick, Mark Fischer and Michael Serres. 

The four texts will be countered with four subtexts which we will read together week by week including essays by Gayatri Spivak, Claire Bishop, Franco "Bifo" Beradi & Georges Bataille. 

Across the eight weeks we will move between theory, collective reading, and short writing exercises that test how these ideas translate into poetic and practical methods for working, thinking, and living within—and against—administrative life.