So They’re Not The Original

So They’re Not The Original was written as part of the Sphere’s Project, a collaboration between George Mason University’s Composition Forum and Special Collections Archives (SCRC). After connecting with some of the archives' faculty, I became fascinated with the Archives' representation of “memory fact,” or as I’ve been calling it, a “memory-save-point”. I interviewed two SCRC faculty members and asked them to tell a story of a time they assisted someone navigating an archive with which they had a personal connection. I then asked them to repeat the story twice, each time asking “Can you give me ten percent more detail?”. 

As they retold their stories, I was fascinated with how each recalled detail created new narratives, like an em-dash in prose. These responses evolved into strings of stories, stories within stories, all stemming from small added details like “Oh, his shirt was actually blue” or “I remember his name was Mike”. 

From those responses, I’ve derived a micro-episodic form that simultaneously communicates multiple narrative lines. These narratives tell the story of someone interacting with their own archive after trying desperately to remember something from their past.