From http://www.20x200.com.
Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Left Panel
by Mickey Smith ARTIST STATEMENT
Volume documents bound periodicals and journals in public libraries. Most of these publications are being replaced by their online counterparts. Several titles photographed in the process of this project have been destroyed. Searching endless rows of utilitarian text, I am struck by the physical mass of knowledge and the tenuousness of printed work as it fades from public consciousness.
The act of hunting for and photographing these objects is fundamental to my process. I do not touch, light or manipulate the books and words—preferring to document them as found in the stacks, created by the librarian and positioned by the last unknown reader. I focus on simple, provocative titles that transcend the spines on which they appear to create conceptual, language-based, anthropological works.
Recent works in this series are multiple panel installations, called Collocations. Collocation is defined as "the act or result of placing or arranging together, specifically: a noticeable arrangement or conjoining of linguistic elements (as words)."
In my experience, commercial database subscriptions, although very convenient, are far more "tenuous" and ephemeral than physical copies. But it's been established several times over that library administrations do not want to hear that view.
ReplyDeleteDigital media is itself "ephemeral" because at any point subscription plans could change. The file could become inaccessible. So, yes, you're right.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever noticed that a book published in the 30s and 40s has good bindings but something published in the last few years falls apart immediately?
Until someone pulls them, these bound journals are here to stay. The problem is they are not the product-of-choice these days. Library administrators are not sending journals to be bounds and are choosing instead to buy online subscriptions.