paralipomena

paralipomena   1992-2006
collaborations with Michael Piazza (1955-2006)

As Safe As Houses
Installation at NNWAC, Chicago 1992

Apparatus For Tending   
Installation at Starland, Savannah 2002

Reading Room 978
Installation at Polvo, Chicago 2003

Salt water de-acidifies paper. This installation is a home made de-acidifier. Salty tears generated by air blown through tubes as the reader reads collects in a gutter, runs down a drain pipe to a 

vat where books are soaked in the salty tear solution and then hung on a drying rack. Reading Room 978 is a closed system, the same 3 sets of 10 books repeat the cycle to infinity.

HE  R  SE
A collage, cut-up book of 180 pages. We each selected 10 books that had the last 'check digit' of the bar code 0-9. Only books  with pages that were no larger than 8 1/2"x 5 1/2" and were at least 200 pages long could be considered. We devised a system of page ordering that we could follow as we worked alone that would result in a coherent book of consecutive page numbering and in which we would each have worked on facing pages.  B would start by altering page 1 of book bearing check digit 0 and page 2 of book bearing check digit 1 then M would follow page 3 of check digit 2 and page 4 of check digit 3 etc etc. We passed through our selected 10 books 9 times making a new book of 180 pages. The title HERSE came from altering the first page by eliminating a number of letters and then we discovered that Herse was the name of a character form Greek mythology.
The finished book was assembled in may 2005.