Documentation is the process of gathering knowledge and creating a systematic archive/diary/collection. It is essentially about archiving and preserving the past, but also describing and predicting the future. As a kid, I predicted futures like The Fifth Element; with flying cars and high technology fashion. What I now see is a world continuously repeating itself; a reminiscence of the past.
A few of us keep diaries or document our lives as picture books, and we seek alternative ways of archiving our present. The internet offers anyone an opportunity to express themselves, but most of all it is a way of recording our lives. We have an obsessive need to capture each moment; pics or it didn’t happen. But are we so worried about missing out that we miss out?
It seems we are a world lacking the means of a future optimistic view; forced into this retro-notion seen in creative disciplines and techniques such as fashion, photography and music, but also in more universal subjects from car manufacturing to politics. When the will to predict has decreased, who shall be visionaries for the future? Youth has, since the beginning of mankind, created and prognosticated the “next” and taken responsibility for it — mostly because we are the youth, coincidentally. Now is an opportunity to actively predict futures.
Maybe the cynicism emerging from the big political and ecological world crises we are facing at the moment make us seek comfort in nostalgia. Or maybe there is no time or chance for prediction of the next utopias, or nextopias, because it is time consuming whereas creative incubation time is lacking. Rapidity is dictated, caused by the perpetual pressure from society and industries, and subsequently the past is accessible, with little effort, and easily adaptable. It is beyond human ability to create eight collections a year, like we see in fashion. Creative directors are therefore being forced to repeat history and repeat themselves; an interception of the next.
Recens Paper salutes nextopia. Instead of continuously looking back and revisiting retro vibes, we see importance in inventing our own brand new futures enabled by empowering young people and their fresh ideas. Through anthologizing different forms of archiving the past and capturing the moment in order to surveil the future, Recens Paper is a memorial of today’s youth culture.
Identify, explore, observe, invent, share, document.
