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| | | Re-defining the Process
Designed and produced by Karen Bleitz
Sheet
metal bulletin board for reading and response. Detachable silkscreened
metal plates with texts on the theme of ‘Generation X’ and magnetised
text in metal trough. Unique interactive wall-mounted sculpture, 160 x
170cm. London, 1997
‘I
began to explore the bulletin boards on the internet, where users can
manipulate other people’s texts and spit their own ideas back into
cyber space. The piece sprang from the idea of giving the conventional
page the possibilities available to digital documents. I silkscreened
different texts onto 3 metal sheets. The first text was Douglas
Coupland’s glossary from his book Generation X, the next was a
marketing report commissioned by the sponsors of the Lollapalooza
festival called Targeting the Stoned Cyber Punk, which discussed the
best ways to approach and sell to a crowd they assumed was emotionally
and mentally impaired by drugs. The third text was a rebuttal to the
media’s labelling titled, ‘Don’t call me Generation X, call me a child
of the 80’s,’ in which the author fondly reminisces about a childhood
of consumerism. Ironic or not, his comments placed him in the bulls-eye
of the festival sponsors’ target market. The words of the 3 texts were
re-silkscreened onto magnets and placed in their original order on the
metal sheets. I took them to pubs, cafes and clubs and left them laying
around for people to read, reflect upon, and rewrite. When I went back
to collect them, the texts were always re-arranged. The metal sheets
were photocopied and, over time, grew into the book Re-defining.’
(Cathy Courtney interview 1999)
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