Analysis of Digital Archives

Article: Elegy, or the poetics of surplus

Author: Jasper Bernes, Joshua Clover, and Juliana Spahr

This article talks about the meaning of being poetic in itself, and what ever happened to being poetic. The definition of poetic we’re given is that a large part of the communication given is made by things other than denotation and connotation. Normally, to be poetic, it has to be of the form of art or literature. However, the article questions if an activity that is physical can be poetic. A physical act has no product, so therefore it has no way to be observed after it is completed, even then, can a dance be poetic? The article points out many different things that can be considered poetic even if it is just a dance. For example, there is a style known as turfing in Oakland, California. This style is apparently a way to understand style itself and finds its roots in the Bay Area and its locals. I myself, think that there most definitely can be poetry in physical form, because every style and dance carries the weight of someone’s life, skill and passion, much like traditional art and literature.

Article: Gwendolyn Brooks’s ‘Riot’ and the opt out

Author: Jasper Bernes, Joshua Clover, and Juliana Spahr

This article starts out in stating the question of what forces shape poetry? A lot of the time, there are many political and economic factors that go into play for the spread of something cultural like poetry. The authors point out that they once did a workshop in Tijuana, but upon receiving their paychecks, they noticed that the checks came from the Department of Energy. Realistically, there would be no reason for the department of energy to get involved in something like poetry. However, it is clear that a lot of the time things that may seem cultural can become one of the hands of diplomacy, and that’s exactly what happened in this situation. They thought they were simply teaching poetry, but in reality they just became one of the powers of the state. I think that something like this can only really work because poetry has no way to make income, so politicians are able to use poets for political gain with something as simple to them as money.

Article: The Feds Are Watching: A History of Resisting Anti-Black Surveillance

Author: Simone Browne

In this article, we dive into the ways that Black communities used technologies that were already made in order to bypass the systems that were meant to contain them. One of the earlier examples of this was Wide Area Telephone Service or WATS which monitored threats that came from sources of white supremacy such as the Ku Klux Klan. They would use these technologies to make contact with officers of civil rights organizations. Even today, we have updated ways of breaking the system that was meant to slow down black progress. For example, we have “Hey, Siri, I’m getting pulled over” which gives you a screen of options and also records your conversation with an officer. While I do think that technologies like this should never have to be available in the first place, I have to give credit to the ingenuity of the black community and their effort to resist anti-black surveillance.

Article: Police Reform Works — For the Police

Author: Naomi Murakawa

There have been many times in history where we have tried to reform the police, but time and time again, there is a new headline about police violence or something of the sort. In 2016, the Obama administration tried to control the police by forcing them to wear body cameras which would record everything the police did. However, this investment proved to be unworthy as the only thing it really did was give police officers new access to surveillance technology they didn’t have before. They are now able to capture the images of protestors and use image recognition software to find the protestors. This is just one of many examples in which reforming the police tends to backfire on us. To me, the solution is not to reform the police, but to remake the police. Change their power, what they’re made up of, and who calls the shots.