Slide Show

Double click on the Image above to start the slideshow, then click on the upper left corner button, where it says "full size". It SHOULD open up in a new window.

This Slideshow is a virtual version of "Glossary & Index" being shown now in the exhibition Endnotes
up now at the 03 gallery, Oxford Castle, Oxford, UK.

The “Endnotes” exhibition organizers gave the participating artists random books being "de-accessioned" by the Oxford Public Library.

Martha received the book: “Teach Yourself PCs in 24 Hours- 2nd Edition” by Greg Perry. She was intrigued by the idea of needing to use a book (normally made to be permanent, solid object) to explain the use of a computer- that ephemeral, connected and vast database. The Virtual/ Digital world was supposed to supplant the book, and make redundant all printed matter. In fact, digital printing, the Web, and increased speed of production through computer use have made books more popular than ever. One supposes that by the time a book is printed and is distributed, its shelf–life would be very short indeed, as computer technology has such rapid built-in obsolescence.

This makes the turn-over for both very high, creating a rather wonderful moibus strip of industry:

Book info. about new computers -Computer info. about new books- Book info about new computers -ad infinitum.

The resulting art project, “Glossary & Index”, jams together the history of the book with the history of the computer into the outdated computer manual. The glossary and index of the original text have been extracted and expanded to include the history of the book (blue) and the history of the computer (red). These “histories” have been purloined off the web and scotch-taped in, only to be scanned and then printed out again. This final output becomes a somewhat random, cockeyed history of human inventiveness and hubris.

Martha has always loved books, as much for their physicality as for their content. She is beginning to love computers- the story of their construction is as elegant and moving as any she has stumbled across. This is a tale of interaction caught at the very beginning…