the reliquarium 2000
anonymous y2k listserv diary – listserv (email) performance and archive – 254 2D flatbed scans / 254 texts
Gratitude to Csaba Csáki
the reliquarium (92 Chromogenic prints 10 x 10”) 2015
the reliquarium storyboard (manuscript) 2000
the reliquarium screensaver (Windows & Mac Classic) 2000, obsolete 2005
the reliquarium dated pairs (various inkjet prints and postcards up to 11 x 17”) 2000
the reliquarium database includes 254 text/image pairs that I created in correspondence with a participant community of up to 1700 listserv recipients. Objects were found, bought, begged, borrowed, stolen and scanned on my flatbed scanner. Texts were self authored, found, appropriated, stolen, quoted and contributed by the listserv participants. While subscribers were accepted by the performance, the project was primarily delivered as targeted, unsolicited email (spam was a concept that arose during the unfolding of the performance). from the reliquarium database entries were both abstract and capricious, dancing on the boundary of anonymity and intimacy that characterized early electronic communication. The project received a large amount of feedback including image contributions, love letters, insults, critical inquiries, subscribe requests, unsubscribe requests and automated mail messages. I established performance parameters for which I prepared each entry as the last task of my day and that each entry reflected the day on which it was made. from the reliquarium database considered issues of identity including memory, the body, relationships, community, the nature of electronic communications technology and was reflective of the project itself. The email performance was conceived as a process by which to create a storyboard for a nonlinear yet thematically cohesive narrative. The project database consists of an email log of correspondence with recipients and automated systems, footnotes, source notes, a collection of relics, a collection of texts and from the reliquarium database archive manuscript of digital print works.
