ROD BAER STUDIOS
art and text projects
the book of lies-
is a mixed media limited edition portfolio by 22 artists from around the world. (signed and numbered edition of 80). Organized by Eugenia Butler, sponsored by Southern California Institute of Architecture with a dedicated web site underwritten by the Getty Foundation. "the book of lies" is the first in a series of planned portfolios. Participating artist were given no guidelines other than the title, edition size and the suggestion that work should be flat enough to fit into a portfolio case.
Collected editions may be viewed at a number of locatins, including the New York City Library and the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
My contribution consists of written divinations on the subject of lies and poetic communication ...
click to see sample pages:
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background notes -
I was originally invited to participate under the mantle of being a visual artist, but decided on writing because the disembodied nature of words has the greatest potential for lying. The inherent manipulation of text, in particular, reveals itself in restricted, linear glimpses as opposed to a painting for example, which can be scanned immediately in entirety with any number of potential beginnings and endings. In addition, unlike live performance of dance and music or reductive processes such as carved sculpture which are wedded to the moment of their making, the presentation of ideas by printed document allows authors nearly absolute power of control via editing and countless rewrites, creating consequences which are both good and bad. With this in mind, I further decided to expose the shading of truth and lies that was playing in my mind and the selective biases of writing by weaving my internal dialog of self consciousness as I went along. Specifically, I focused on the unique structure of communicating anonymously in absentia to an imagined audience and the mechanism of acting as if it were a private conversation between you and me as two real people rather than a product of mass media distribution, distance and disjointed time. I notice that in my mind I conform to an arrangement in which the writer and reader proceed as if on intimate terms, without the slightest shred of first hand knowledge regarding each other's veracity or capacity to deceive.
If I wanted to lie, then repeating one truth ad nausem would be status quo, but as I am more interested in telling the truth about lies, I wanted to to foil my own editorship by starting with the same poetic premise and then reinventing it each time I sat down to write. Theoretically, to fulfill the edition meant 80 versions as each writing had to be signed and numbered for separate buyers. The fun begins by announcing in the opening paragraph that the particular piece of paper being held by the reader is unique and for them alone. Since a great number of these portfolios were destined to be sold to collectors, it is probable that most of them would never be shared in public, which led credence to this approach, as well as the opportunity for a certain tone of private secrecy. The irony of the situation is that the reader is already in a bit of a bind about what to believe by the end of the first sentence because the subject of lying implies deception and hoax. Since the portfolio was published with the intention of being distributed throughout different cities and countries, the likelihood of a reader knowing whether there was one, ten or eighty versions would be relatively impossible to ascertain. Conversely, creating only one copy of a poem enclosed inside of a collectible container for a single unknown person, seemed to heighten my sense of both confession and futility, as it underscores that there are really no assurances at all, and the best and finest may never be read by anyone.
The kaleidoscopic reflections of these pages gets further convoluted now, by its presence on the web, which is (possibly) diametrically opposed to my original stated intention, turning what was once physically immediate, tactile, and relatively private into something distanced, neutralized and exposed. Much to our chagrin, and maybe also to our comfort, the nature of truth and lies never stops mutating.
you can visit the entire Book of lies web site via the linkola page
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