Collecting traces

Every Chelt volume contains over circa 100 pages, each volume I relentlessly documented using what ever natural light was available to me. Photograph, photograph after photograph. Each image curated, structured, downloaded and transmitted to Louise. Hours worth of work to capture what must be in excess of 3000 JPEG files. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Louise could not visit the archive impacting on how she can experience the archive. Unable to physically see the records, to feel the texture of the parchment. Her experience is limited to receiving and viewing digital photographs produced by myself (the University archivist).

Following her creative brief, I documented as much of the Chelt volumes as I reasonably could. Over six working days, I continued a relentless documentation of the information and submitted the contents for download. At no point did I allow myself the luxury of looking at the information held as the deadline was tight. Instead of embedding myself within research, I managed to see glimpses of the records, images that just caught my eye. I could not read any of the stories or academic articles as the writing was just to small or time consuming to read. But sometimes I could see a title or two such as Art Exhibition or Experiencing Shakespeare.

I’ve started producing drawings, not always clear and accurate, but slightly blurred. The more details held in the art, the suggestion for how long I took to just observe the information. The results are numerous blurred drawings, or compositions that just don’t match where they originated from. However this is quite reflective of the digitization process we archivists’ experience, we don’t get to look at any content, we only see the traces.