2023 / multimedia
Inspired by the Indian Oral History Project Collection at San Jose State University, Imaginary Relay, For Andy is a speculative docu-poetic intervention that questions the archive. Nand “Andy” Khanna was one of the fourteen oral histories documented by Dr. Rajiv Khanna of the Department of History at San Jose State University with the support of Matt Bell who served as the Oral History Coordinator. This work was in response to findings and prompts provided by Bay Area-based artist and educator Rhonda Holberton for the exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight were then showcased at the Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery.
Archival research often yields either discoveries about the social and political landscape or confronting contentious feelings about a particular time in history. During the research and creative process of developing the work, I used constraints to create the work that included watching and listening to the selected oral history while performing a close reading of the approximately 80-page transcript. Then, I selected text I felt may have resonated with my mother’s immigration story to the United States. From there, I pulled Mr. Khanna’s text (depicted in red type) and proceeded to re-cast and re-imagine myself as the interviewer (depicted in blue type). His words are preserved verbatim. Another key constraint is taking into consideration the use of relay operating protocols, which entails keeping text brief and as concise as possible. This work is a result of an experiment in archival research while using a speculative docu-poetic framing to explore concepts of the cultural and technological changes within the Bay Area and perceptions of the Desi and Asian community within Silicon Valley at the emergence of the personal computing age.
Dorothy R. Santos, Ph.D. 