A frozen archive of melting moments

I spent the duration of the event trying to archive
and preserve the movement of a frozen moment. I did
not embark on the project with this intention, but
discovered that I was doing this as the event
progressed.

I chose to use the medium of paper/pen, but there was
no paper available so I picked up the NSCAD NOW
BULLETIN (published as a daily archive of school
events and information) as a readily available found
material. I thought since the project was about
archiving duration the NOW BULLETIN would be an
appropriate point of departure.

Following the group, we proceeded to walk along a path
the the ocean dock. As we approached I dropped a
bulletin in a puddle of melting snow. Then I placed a
second one under a dripping gutter above the bus lane
outside Perk's coffee, and placed another on the
island on their balcony. And a fourth under an
overhang in melting snow and muck.
As we reached the dock I tried to write down where I
had left these, but the wind picked up a fifth and
blew it into the ocean.
On the next I wrote a list of where the previous five
bulletins were left.
Throughout the remainder of the event I recorded the
locations of the previous bulletins on to the blank
space of the next one and left the previous list in a
new location.
Each of these bulletins sat in a particular location
absorbing the melting snow into their material
recording the information of their environment as my
written information became diluted and blurred.
Each of these multiplied records of NOW became
individuated by the affects of their particular lived
experience given by location (melting snow, mud,
grass, water) and duration spent in that location.
I found as my collection of NOWs multiplied, keeping
track of them all became more and more futile.
I was trying to protect them, trying to hold onto and
archive each moment even as I placed them in garbages
and sewers. They were each gathering data, and I
needed to retrieve them safely in order to complete
the task I set out for myself.
As I performed this archiving action I was vaguely
aware of the movement of the group. I used their
stillness and their rhythm as an anchor around which
to take my measurements. I also saw myself protecting
the group as well as protecting my archive from the
group.
At NSCAD, NOW BULLETINS tend to function in an
iterative pattern in a reverse order to the method I
ended up using to record my archive: An event is
listed daily until the day it occurs, at which point
it ceases to be listed. Every consecutive day up to
the event repeats the information.
In my archive I had multiple copies of the same
bulletin, or the same day. I iterated the location of
all the past nows, creating a list that grew as time
(frozen) passed.
I will upload photos of the archive once I get to a
scanner, but wanted to record this before it became
too forgotten.