Of Fig Untitled No In To Title I Portrait With Series Concetto Self Joy (2014) VVVR

The individual words of the title, in the sequence "Of Fig Untitled No In To Title I Portrait With Series Concetto Self Joy", are the fourteen most frequently used words in the titles from artwork exhibited at the John Hansard Gallery and at offsite projects (if one would omit the words the, a, and, on, from, at). The exhibitions from which the author collated about twelve hundred titles took place between 1 March 2003 and 17 August 2013. The hardware/software setup which generates the visual work animates the gallery's exhibition history as if it is a film title and a credit roll in one. The work is based on gathering and dispersal practices within the artworld, and can be materialised in different forms over time.

In the context of my research, the project "Of Fig Untitled No In To Title I Portrait With Series Concetto Self Joy" (2014) is a work that exemplifies what I call a dispersed object. It aims to rethink the status of the art object from a material perspective. The project as artwork is conceived as a dynamic entity that is located between multiple sources, temporary visualisations and possible manifestations. By creating an archive of artwork titles, re-ordering the data, and dispersing it digitally as an algorithm, the author generates new work which only materialises temporarily as a projection of titles. As such the status of the art object is contingent on being performed and being conserved. What is being performed and conserved? The titles are generated and visualised 'live' one after the other by a software & hardware apparatus, which means that any photograph or video of the piece should be understood as documentation only. Besides the temporary events of visualisation that bring certain elements together, these elements (see the materials and tools of this project above) are if possible, made public and archived as separate entities. An online search will lead potential users of these tools to the sites where they can be downloaded. Materials and tools are all created by the artist and published with a creative commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) to allow free non-commercial use and adaptations if the artist is credited. The artist’s database of artwork titles serves a different purpose than the source archive of a gallery and should be seen as a separate entity. For aesthetic or technical reasons the titles and artist names may have become formatted in a different way.

With thanks to individuals and organisations who’s support have made this project possible. In particular: the John Hansard Gallery; Members of the user forums of Pure Data and Fontforge to help out when I got stuck; University of Southampton, and Winchester School of Art. First exhibited at Image-Text-Object: Practices of Research in the Hartley Library, University of Southampton, UK from 10 February to 14 March 2014.