Cornelia Vismann, Files

∆

This nonerasable file […] remains the final threat for the functionaries of the Stasi apparatus. Their last and only hope is that their files may be canceled on Judgment Day, when our sins are erased (exaleiphein) from the divine record that registers all our deeds.

∆

Only a consciously committed breach of the rules is able to defer the collapse into total order and thus grant the civil servant-comrades a last lease on life.

Heiner Müller

∆

I had a dream last night. It was a nightmare

Then I woke up and all things were in order.

I am fascinated by the beauty and strangeness that runs through Vismann’s discussion of the Stasi Files. Her descriptions revel in the uncanny elements of bureaucracy, of a world that is built from the ground up on files and “data subjects.” Certainly, totalitarian states represent an extreme realization of this kind of order, where organization and ideology collapse into each other. However, a system and concept of filing can continue even as the ideology of those who developed it is left behind, as Vismann points out as she moves through the events of the chapter.

I am drawn to the way Vismann turns to language of the supernatural, mythic and religious in her final statements on “Data Protection.” Perhaps my interest is related to the fact that I just finished binge-watching the first season of American Horror Story, but the morbid inevitably in the dialectics of Müller’s poem (and Vismann’s explanation of said poem) inspired my “archival” creation. The bureaucratic official who gives the instructions in the poem has a nightmare that gives way to order upon waking. But, this order itself is the nightmare because it erases the official as subject entirely. To preserve himself, the official attempts to reintroduce disorder to the dialectical world by ordering another civil servant to commit suicide in a chaotic and disruptive manner. This disorder is supposed to ensure the continued relevance, employment, and thus existence of the official. However, at the end of the poem, we are left with the nightmare of order and the loss of the subject. (I think.)

After finishing Vismann, I began to think about the writing habits we shared with each other at the beginning of this course. So many of us take handwritten notes during class, despite the fact that we never look at these notes again, never use them as a reference. I tried to think back to when this habit began in my case. During high school, I did return to my classroom notes. In a school system where grades are handled in a mass and bureaucratic manner via scantron testing, note-taking is quite important to “success.” I needed to know the answers to test questions, these answers were given to us during class-time to be studied and memorized before test day.

If a binder counts as a filing technology, what of a spiral notebook? Do I use this technology as a filing device despite the limitations of its material properties for this task? In high school and undergrad, I had different spirals for every class. Sometimes, I would bring the wrong spiral to a class. I wanted to make sure only notes for “Biology” were contained within the “Biology Notebook,” only notes for “History” were contained within the “History Notebook.” And I wanted to have notes for every class session to ensure a good grade so I could be a worthwhile subject who was “going places” etc. So, I would take notes in the wrong spiral, then, later, rip out the misplaced pages and paste or tape them into the correct linear space within the correct spiral. Why did I not use binders? I thought they were too big and clunky to carry around I guess.

For this signment, I have decided to turn my ordered spiral for note-taking this semester into a nightmare of disorder. When I was a child, I would have vivid and terrifying fever hallucinations. Any time my fever rose about 100 degrees, I would see things, living nightmares in the real space of my room. I have tried to remember as many of these hallucinations as I could. I wrote each one on a ripped out, unused page from my spiral and taped it over a page of notes from class. (I’m never going to look at the notes anyway.) These hallucinations certainly disrupted the order of the world as my human brain perceives it on a fundamental level. I have disrupted the reassuring order of my spiral, which informs my day-to-day life, my profession, in a way that helps me understand myself as a subject in a working and practical way. However, this disorder is on the surface level. Underneath the additional sheets of paper, the original pieces of paper still form the backbone of the spirals materiality and functionality. They connect to the spiraling loops, they allow me to complete the familiar action of flipping pages. They keep the spiral a spiral.