derive in the archive

"The derive has to become a practice within the archive, allowing the discovery of the hidden ambiences within the Situationist stacks that escape the division of intellectual labor."

Coincidentally, I saw the conceptual artist David Bunn speak this afternoon. He was given the entire archive of cards from the old LA Library card catalog when they decided to go digital -- and now he creates poetry out of the language from the cards. For instance, in one of his poems he looks up all the titles in the catalog that begin with "after you" and arrives at:

After you, Columbus
after you, Magellan!
after you, Marco Polo
after you with a pistol.

This example is more procedural, but he has lately taken to creating poems with the card catalog in a more arbitrary fashion, dipping in and out and moving through the information randomly. He described his work as "derive" in the archive.