2009
A chalkboard is updated once a day with internet comments concerning events that may have taken place in the distant past or things that might happen far in the future.
Using Google News, I searched for current reporting on three topics: cyborgs, australopithecus, and life on mars. I then collected hundreds of reader comments from various stories about each topic. These were sorted, printed, placed in folders, and kept in an office tray. At noon daily the gallery attendant erased the previous days messages, chose a folder (Cyborgs, Australopithecus, or Life on Mars), and transcribed several pages of new comments on the chalkboard for one hour. Through the process, messages were layered, obscured and eventually lost. The transcribed pages were then placed in an outbox, available for viewers to take like notes from a lesson.
