In/Visible: The Political and Sexual Regimes of Databases

Abstract

This text focuses on the politics and sexual regimes of databases and archives (and art histories) and their relation to human rights, equality and democracy. The main goal is to question, problematize and analyze the cultural and political regimes and strategies deployed in the processes involved in the storage of databases of cultural, artistic, and historical works and events, and, in particular, the regimes of visibility by means of which non-normative sexual experiences and cultural practices are in/excluded from official archives and institutionalized databases, and their consequent influence on the politics of cultural memory and heritage. Setting sexuality and gender as points of investigation, as they are being lived and experienced on the social margins, this text aims to open up for discussion the very foundations of how databases are being conceived and what counts as an archive.