Archives of the Body – The Body in Archiving is a multi-part project. The publication is closely linked to the symposium of the same name (HFBK Hamburg, April 25 and 26, 2024). The exhibition »Archives of the Body: Imagining a Different Corpus,« curated by Vanessa Gravenor, opens at the same time (HFBK, ICAT, April 26 to May 10, 2024). The multimedia works by HFBK students that are on display were conceived, intensively worked on and finally realized in several seminars lead by the curator. Archives of the Body – The Body in Archiving developed from Vanessa's project during her engagement as Artistic Research Associate at the HFBK from 2021 to 2024. In addition to the (audio)visual works, most of the artistic research undertaken by the students also resulted in texts, which—what is important to us editors—can be found in the digital publication without any formal hierarchical distinction between academic and student artistic research contributions. Within the exhibition, there is also a screening program with audiovisual ›works in progress‹ from the research group »Intimacy of Politics and the Politics of Intimacy« coordinated by HFBK Professor of Film, Adina Pintilie. The program complements the relationship between politics and the body from a specific perspective, that of desire and proximity. The interconnectedness of the topic with the University is reflected in the commitment of our artistic and academic teaching staff. It is also always enriching to see the topics and places where HFBK and alumni are active today and the generosity in which they have gladly agreed to participate in our project.
Acknowledgements
Without the generous support of many, however, nothing would have been possible: First of all, sincere thanks go to Martin Köttering, who made the project his own and the supported it from University funds. We would especially like to thank Beate Anspach for the excellent overview she had of everything at all times and for numerous detailed solutions to problems. Stefan Aue made sure that the project could be realized and supported both the symposium and exhibition. Thank you for that. We would also like to thank Miriam Schmidt for her help with the digital content and image alt text description that adds an extra layer of accessibility to the site. We would especially like to thank the graphic designers Karen Czock, Sophia Krasomil, Maja Redlin and Liudmila Savelyeva, Master's students from the Digital Graphics class, and Konrad Renner, the supervising Professor. You have realized our idea of the publication in a digital publication. As always, the experiment—it is the HFBK's first digital publication—was much more sophisticated and labor-intensive than expected: 1001 thanks to you for the design and your tireless efforts! Many thanks to Eske Schlüters and Richard Pettifer for tracking down the remaining errors but especially to Eske Schlüters for her eagle eye in the final proof. A symposium and an exhibition would certainly not be possible without the active support of the events department, the house service and the technical team. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank them.
Many thanks to all our contributors who have accepted the invitation to contribute their works, their textual research, audiovisual outputs to our publication. We thank you for turning your focus to bodies and archives, your willingness to open up your often personal thoughts, to analyze political and cultural contexts and to present your perspectives. This journey has been more than fruitful. Together, we observe a potential for a future relationship to the body, to bodies (plural), a more equitable dialogue between bodies and to their archiving devices.