GENERAL TITLE GIVEN BY MYSELF

co-organized with Sally Morfill

The first in a series of two exhibitions on making marks and meaning. These explore early complicit engagement with surveillance and the relationship between diaristic self-exposure with the resultant surfeit material.

The exhibition of General title given by myself* offers a look at the production of text towards its dissemination into the public sphere. Throughout the duration of this exhibition activities of Transcribing, Editing, and Proof-reading are performed in the space of the gallery. These are removed from the contemporary arena of the digital age and executed through techniques from the early 20th century to coincide with the source-work.

The starting point for all this activity comes from the Day Surveys of 1937-1939 from the Mass Observation archive. These day-long diaries describe in detail the everyday lives of self-selecting correspondents who contributed the documents to the collection. Within the archive, their words became pictures as they were scanned for digital presentation. The result of the activity within General title given by myself returns these pictures of words back into marks on a page.

* This line of text comes from the Day Survey of J. Axton on 12th August, 1937

6 July – 14 July 2013
Five Years Gallery, 66 Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London, E8 4QN - www.fiveyears.org.uk/

Link: www.fiveyears.org.uk/archive2/pages/173/general_title
Catalogue: books4.html