All the media used in visual arts have initially been functional copying techiniques. They have acquired their artistic value when discarded as unpractical and archaic in favour of more efficient techniques.
Given the continual progress in the development of mechanic technologies of copying and duplicating, the value of the original has gradually diminished. We have reached a point where a copy is more important than the original: the original object does not possess a significant value in comparison with the unlimited mass of almost identical copies. Anyone can obtain a copy.
Copy is not to be understood as an individual piece of reproduction of the original object. Copy should be understood rather as a global concept: copy itself is an object, an entity that is not bound to matter. Copy exists on an abstract plane, as an universal concept.
I further state that a collective copy entity, being an universal metaphor of the copied object, contains the so-called immortal soul of the original object. This esthetic principle, albeit a nihilistic one, is the message of my exhibition.
The exhibition consisted of two distinct parts: the Communications room with various mail art projects; and my private "Echo" installation which was divided to two adjacent rooms (Room A and Room B in the following).
Communication art project documents
Copyright © 1996 J. Lehmus. All individual works Copyright © 1996 by their respective authors. All further rights to works belong to the authors and revert to the authors on publication.
jlehmus@cute.fi 22 September 1996