THE PUBLIC TYPING POOL
Residency: TEXT FESTIVAL BURY, MAY 3 -AUGUST 9, 2014
As part of Text Festival 2014, the drawing shed, aka artists Lloyd+Labern, set up THE PUBLIC TYPING POOL: a selection of old manual typewriters in Bury Sculpture Centre for a residency spanning the Laurence Wiener exhibition; Over the months they invited the local Bury public to take part in a number of events, interventions and opportunities to slam the keys, copy those carbons, make new music, write a love letter, settle an old score, make overtures to a community, create the only page of a novel, type out an apology, make a flat plan sculpture, write a poem, type alone, write together.
Event: Twitter: #un_civil
Exploring the [un]civil in contemporary society, Lloyd+Labern worked with a group of artists and writers to construct a score for a performative text work using Social Media Twitter for Neighbour : Stranger, a collaborative live art writing project. Opening up a space in the commons of the ether, the work was a call and response that extended the enquiry beyond the physical space of the Gallery, where the collisions of experience, ideas and form could take place, and the poetry of this work hit the discomfort of the prosaic and bounced up into a mile high space. Screened in real time in Bury Sculpture Centre, exhibition visitors and artists were invited to join us in the ether, or on the typewriters in response to the emerging conversation.
the drawing shed artists Labern+Lloyd were in residence at intervals over the months of the Laurence Weiner exhibition, creating several new works in collaboration with the Bury public and through provocations with local artists. Inspired by scientist Dr Elodie Briefer’s research on the SkyLark’s song and its split-second nuanced changes in recognising both Strangers and Neighbours, the artists made a number of new visual works using the Typewriter and its Carbon Copy investigating the [un]civil in times of austerity and migration.
The Public Typing Pool – Call Out : for Typewriters:
“Iris Murdoch wrote on a Bijou Erika…..Allen Jack Kerouac an Underwood portable, William Burroughs a Remington or whatever he could get his hands on. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn used an Erika Ten Portable, Françoise Sagan a 1950’s Smith Corona Portable, George Perec an Underwood 5, and Anne Sexton a Royal Quiet Deluxe…. Ginsberg loved an Underwood 5 or was it a Remington No5?
The Public Typing Pool will work with local groups and will be open to the public to enjoy throughout May, June, July and August! Do you have an old Olivetti Lettera 32 / 22, or a Remington or a majestic old Smith Corona ….all makes, sizes and shapes are welcome!
Bury Art Museum is making a Call Out for old manual Typewriters – if you have one you could donate to create the Public Typing Pool as part of this project to launch Bury Sculpture Centre. Your story about your typewriter can become part of the artwork…!”
‘I Loved Her’
He then gets up and walks out leaving the typed sheet, the copy and the carbon. Beautiful.
Neighbour : Stranger
