Stenograms
2015
These works are the by-product of a deliberately convoluted process. I wrote a series of texts in the comments or reply sections of various news and social media websites. I composed these texts within conversations that were inactive. Like the Dead Letter Office in Bartleby the Scrivener, the web is a repository of dead conversations. The texts were then redacted and edited and given to a stenographer, who transcribed them into Gregg shorthand. The shorthand texts were then used to produce silkscreens.
These works were shown at the Emanuel Layr gallery, alongside a series of other works that referenced shorthand. Among them were small collections of shorthand-related postcards, sold as collections whose owner is in turn encouraged to add to, by purchasing additional items. A video was also made using a diary, purchased in an online auction site, of a diary written in shorthand in 1917 by a high school student in Waco, Texas. An enigmatic image of a stenography class performing with large white foam cutouts of shorthand characters was shown in the archival sleeve that it was placed in by its seller.
Images of the exhibition are shown below along with two documents containing the texts that were transcribed into shorthand:
Stenograms 1-6