The Newspaper Project
A variable and expanding project by Bill Singer and Todd Schroeder
A multi page newspaper (12 pages for the first installment) intended to be sent to various venues around the world and installed as the recipient sees fit (the recipient becomes a participant in the project by choosing a manner of display). We would supply 20 to 30 copies to each venue with the idea that a selection would be installed on walls. The remaining papers would be stacked or presented in the space as objects.
Dimensions:
• 21 x 31inches - unfolded
• 21 x 15.5inches - 1 fold
• 10.5 x 15.5inches - 2 folds
• 10.5 x 7.5inches - 3 folds
This project was conceived in the form of a mediated exchange of ideas related to the breakdown of language and communication. It should be considered an exhibitory project that remains in a constant state of flux, providing the potential for redevelopment and reorganization indefinitely. As such these ideas maintain the consistent position in the project both formally and conceptually.
Out of the need for a tangible departure point in which these ideas could become realized, Schroeder's text based works (described below) were digitally reproduced and eventually became the structural basis for the project. In order to shed light upon the development through various works, the following statements have been provided and should function as a contextual guide to the ways in which the project continues to expand.
Todd Schroeder: With a conscious desire to enter a process that flipped back and forth from the subjective to the objective, this work was initiated in the summer of 2011 as writing. A visceral response to a paradoxical situation that coupled the anxiety of an impending extended separation from my family with the immersion into a beautiful remote location halfway around the world. The resulting unedited stream of consciousness writing was then cut up and reassembled in a complex systematic way. The results were reassessed and reinterpreted as a series of phrases. These phrases were then arranged in small-scale drawings via a grid to a matrix of dots resembling dot matrix signage. Those signs were scaled up and transferred to individual translucent sheets of drafting film (24x19inches each), the dots being made by using an atomizer to blow an ink and flashe mixture onto the surface of the film. Initially the sheets were assembled as a sign so that the phrase could be read clearly (large scale wall installations). Though through subsequent assemblies, dis-assemblies, and reassemblies the phrases have been “lost”. Within this fortuitous process a resulting foregrounding of the primacy of the marks and interrelationships of elements has evolved. This Newspaper project, and the construct of the newspaper in general supplies a context that reforms the evolution of this work. The primacy of the text is reasserted to an extent, extrapolating on the aesthetic qualities of text without backpedaling to an earlier stage in the development.
Bill Singer: From a divergent position propelled to break apart a system while still allowing for the possibility of approximate return to the original form, I developed a subjective process that transposed the original images by way of formal organization. Each image was brought together in an aesthetically displaced grouping, the final outcome resulting from the chance positioning of the source materials having been disassembled and reconfigured after scanning. Through this composite process I arrived at second set of images reflecting emblematic forms. These forms were further processed into three dimensional digital objects and represent the negative space of the reconfigured source materials.
