Writing questions our suppositions about the concreteness of reality (Newpapers), 2004
Electronic tills at Borders Books were re-programmed to add an additional text to the bottom of each till receipt issued.
In
Newspapers,
the added text suggests the purchase of newspapers creates uncertainty about the truth of any situation.
Different newspapers present the same news story with different emphases. This begs the question, is the reality of any given situation ever really concrete and verifiable?
Writing questions our suppositions about the concreteness of reality
is one of five texts added to till receipts during the month of June.
The work was at once modest in ambition, requiring no additional resources for its execution, but at the same time, sufficent copies of the work were distributed to qualify it for the best-seller lists had it been a book rather than a freely distributed work of public art.
The complete texts read:
Writing questions our suppositions about the concreteness of reality.
Writing adds up to the conscience of our times.
Some people are able to say outright what the rest of us can only suspect.
If no one wrote we'd have no sense of ourselves in our own time.
Writing is a form of vigilance
