Idea: Custom Conversations With Artists
Saturday, September 29th, 2007Coming back from the New York Art Book Fair I decided to post links of all the exhibitors to my del.icio.us feed under the tag nyartbookfair. Browsing through the list of publishers web sites, I noticed a particular publisher’s mission statement
A.R.T. Press primarily publishes books based on artist to artist conversations. The conversation format permits a thorough and at the same time informal investigation of the artists’ practice and the larger social issues that inform it. By virtue of their clarity, personal focus, affordability, and innovative method of distribution, these books make possible the presentation of contemporary artists and their work to a wide readership.
Then it hit me. Most people I know look at art books because they have large color prints of art they like. But there’s always lots of writing in these books. The writing is usually a conversation with the artist.
I’m going to make a series of recordings of different people reading artists answers to questions in these books. Then the user will call a telephone number. They will be presented with a menu to select from 9 artists to ask a question. Then they will speak their question and press the # key. Then they will hear a response by that artist. This question/answer combination will be recorded and later published as if the two really had that dialog.
Of course most of the dialogs won’t make sense…but the ones that do could be interesting.