The second of the Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess. expert working sessions took place at Intermediæ in Madrid. The working sessions are to enable the core curatorial team to gain knowledge and experience. The sessions are closed but resources will be on-line soon.

Artist Daniel García Andújar, founder of the post-capital archive lead the sessions. In the first, Daniel gave an overview of his ideas of the archive, and in the second talked through his post-capital archive and its exhibition.

I wrote into Daniel’s presentation as he spoke, following are the tweaked notes....

Political philosopher Professor Michael Sandel delivered the first of the BBC's 2009 Reith Lectures.

A New Citizenship builds on a lifetime’s work exploring issues around democracy, ethics and ‘politics of the common good’. Many of the themes we are developing within Critical Practice, especially for publicness

The first lecture called for a new politics of the common good.

I wrote into the lecture as I listened, and then ammended those notes

First Sandel suggested we have to recognise the limits, the moral limits of the idea of a competitive market. Clearly, markets are not the best technology for achieving a public good. So, to enable markets to contribute - to a public good, we need to reconnect them to different structures of evaluation; moral, ethical, environmental, etc. And to drives for social justice. Collective integrity and shared values have to triumph over individual greed. But how?

For Sandel, self interest is a personal need; like self respect, self-worth, and self love. And like greed or profit, these drives animate markets. Markets are connected to welbeing, therefore we need markets. They are also very good at distributing resources, but we have to recognise thay are a limited technology. There are some things that money, at work in markets cannot buy - like  friendship, and some things money should not buy - like a child.

I'm working on a research project with Intermediæ entitled Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess.

Intermediæ is an experimental programme for contemporary creative practice developed by the Cultural Department of the City Government of Madrid. Active for 2 years, Intermediae is a process, through which they are constructing an immanent institution. Through their development they have evolved three structural axes: creation as a means for research and production, process for continual experimentation and reflection, and participation as a commitment to their publics.

Procesos de archivo/ Archivalprocess is a reflection on, and a set of artistic projects that explore the construction of an archive of Intermediæ's activities. How can we assemble, present and make available to the public, an archive of an institution conceived as process, and committed to participation?

We understand that public Archives, like collections in Museums and Galleries are built with the property of multiple authors and previous owners. But unlike the collection, there is no imperative within the conventional logic of the archive, to exhibit, display or interpret its holdings.