From April 19 to May 30, 2013, the wall with political pamphlets of the protagonist Anna Sherman will be exhibited in Open Office of Avenue L, Ghent, Belgium. Belgian artists/designers Ines Cox and Lauren Grusenmeyer designed this character as part of their Sightbook of works in stuttering (2012-2013) based on the poetry collection gestamelde werken (English: work in stuttering; 2012) by Rozalie Hirs. For the exhibition, Ines Cox and Lauren Grusenmeyer rebuilt the hardcopy wall their Facebook character Anna Sherman used to generate and publish her political posts. The gallery showcases the already known but also as of yet unpublished political pamphlets.
Belgian design and visual art duo Ines Cox & Lauren Grusenmeyer created six online personae of six poems or cycles from the poetry collection gestamelde werken (Amsterdam: Querido, 2012) by Rozalie Hirs. They made these six online characters – or alter egos, as they called them – come to life on six different social networks. In choosing the poems, Cox & Grusenmeyer started from their own reading experience, their encounter with the poem in question. What does the poem tell us? How does it appear? How does it show itself? Does it speak slowly, quickly, loudly, softly? Is it neutral in tone, aggressive, yearning, lyrical or seductive? They chose very diverse poems or cycles of poems and characterized their encounter with poetry through keywords. This is how they designed six very different characters for the poems, which they brought to life on the online social network they felt best suited the character in question. Through the characters, you can share in Cox & Grusenmeyer’s reading experiences.
All images were created specifically for this project and are copyright protected ©2012-2013 Cox & Grusenmeyer. The words shown in the images, photographs, video and graphics are taken verbatim from the poems by Rozalie Hirs. These are the following six poems or cycles, all of which are quoted in full: ‘lieve lente lacht’ (p.33), ‘vier de stameling’ (pp.52-53), ‘who put on my shoes’ 1-7 (‘who put on my shoes’ 1-7; pp.54-61 ; English translation: Donald Gardner), ‘a no’ (‘a no’; p.31; English translation: Donald Gardner), ‘long at present longing’ 0-6 (pp.16-23), ‘a thousand and one pixel’ (p.36).
The project was supported by the Nederlands Letterenfonds.
Date: 2013-04-19 to 2013-05-30
Start time: weekdays 10:00-17:00 a.m.
Location: Avenue L – Open Office, Schepenhuisstraat 17, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Performers: Ines Cox, Lauren Grusenmeyer (design, concept), Rozalie Hirs (poetry)