Faire Secret / Keep the Secret

In my digital residency, I consider the theme of the secret across Esse’s archive. From hushed stories and subterranean noises through conspiracy theories and the covert operations of the surveillance state, I question the hidden registers of silence and opacity that animate contemporary art and democratic politics. How does secrecy shape the political? How have artists intervened in state secrecy and data surveillance? Conversely, how do artists appropriate the secret? Secrets tend to multiply, so I need to limit myself to just a few essays—from issues 61, Fear; 86, Geopolitics; 92, Democracy; and 95, Empathy—to draw attention to relations of power that structure the secret.

In what way does the secret underwrite the conceptual organization of the archive? As I trace the thread of the secret circulating beneath the themes that explicitly organize Esse’s archive, I am aware of its slipperiness: the secret pulls in its wake the problems of the unconscious. It slides between words unseen, exerting a disruptive force on the archive’s categorization. Importantly, the secret presents a paradox: when it does appear, it destroys itself. It loses its identity as a secret as soon as it is revealed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.