Research is critical to me. It drives my work and energizes me. Over the course of this project I've learned a lot about research, and the different forms in which it exists. I am constantly seeking information. But recently, some fell into my lap.
I work at a county park where a Renaissance Festival is held every spring-- the same festival I've been attending for thirteen years. I won't be sharing any of the documents that I've come across on the office computers of that park -- they make me sign papers forbidding exactly that. But I can tell you that I have discovered documents and images going back over ten years relating to the festival. It's unfolding around me like a giant epistolary novel. Because it's county business, there's a hypnotic repetition to the paperwork that must be submitted every faire season. Even if no specifics change from one year to the next, all new documentation is required. When something does change, it's even better-- the change must be requested in one letter, expounded in a letter of intent, approved in another letter, and integrated into a copy of the original proposal.
This idea of copies, originals, and editing fascinates me. If my work is fixated on the cracks between the built, performed world and reality, then these documents are what you'd find if you exploded those cracks wide open. The fantasy is built on a foundation of bureaucracy.
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