Repertories of (in)discreetness: Curating Radio Free Europe’s Archives Through Artistic Means

The Repertories of (in)discreetness project had its starting point in the archive of Radio Free Europe at Open Society Archives in Budapest, Hungary. The project aimed to question the act and mechanisms of archiving “the Other,” with a focus on the European “East.” The paper discusses how information was collected, how Eastern Europe has gained an epistemic body, and how the historiographic dilemmas were translated through artistic means. By combining old and new media and by using sound, video, and situations as forms of deconstruction and embodiment that render visible the invisible, the exhibition project engaged the visitors in the production of knowledge and the use of informational warfare during the Cold War, as food for thought in connection to the present-day mediatic practices.