What Is Copy
Art? Photocopy as an Art Medium by Reed Altemus Of all the myriad
individual ways of describing and defining photocopier art, there are two,
in particular, which seem to me the most useful. The first is very broad:
photocopier art consists of any instance in which an artist, cultural
worker or any individual uses a photocopier as an important step, whatever
that may be, in the process of producing creative work. Its set includes
very definitely copy-arts-and-crafts, flypostering, micropress, mail art,
and zines. The second useful definition is more mediumistic and specific
and says that copy art consists of an artistic and paradoxical reversal of
the purpose of the technology, using a copying device to produce an
original one-of-a-kind photocopy through an interference with or
intervention in the usual functions and operation of the copy machine. The
premise of this second take is that copy art is defined as work where the
artist purposely uses a copying device to produce something which is not a
copy and can therefore only be called an original by using certain more or
less well-known techniques to divert the photocopier from its normal
function. From this arose the epithet "original copy". For copy artists,
copy art is never a copy of art, but rather the goal is to produce an
original work achieved through a process of exploration and experimental
intervention. One might call the difference between the two areas as
photocopy as a means to an end and photocopy as an end in itself - the
ostensible difference being between using the technology as a machine i.e.
duplication and using it as a tool i.e. creation. There are also certainly
plenty of overlaps between the two, for instance, the production of
editions and artists' book to mention just two. The first category is
probably more useful in describing the medium in general terms as it is
most known, taking into view all the functions photocopiers play in
cultural activities, and probably accounts for 99% of the cultural use of
photocopier technology while the second is more an experimental and
limited domain of specifically copy art praxis limited to the technical
aspects of the medium and based on an artistically adopted paradox. The
latter amounts to a very small segment of artists who consider use of the
photocopier as an art medium in itself. Mail Art & Photocopy As for
the connection between copy art and mail art, the connection between
photocopy and mail art has been there from the beginning- both Ray Johnson
and David Zack owned copy machines which played a considerable role in
their activities. Both were interested in using the copier as a machine
for multiplying their work as well as a tool to produce experimental
prints. Also, in the late 70's the artistampist and painter E.F. Higgins
III began producing his artistamps using the Xerox 6500 color copier at
Jamie Canvas, an art supply store in New York City where he worked. It was
around this same time that the Canadian Jacques Charbonneau visited New
York with his portfoilio of collages and was introduced by Higgins to the
color copier. It was as a result of the meeting and the resulting
enthusiasm for the possibilities of the color photocopier that Charbonneau
returned to Montreal and established a gallery, Motivation V, for copy art
which, later, evolved into the Centre Copie-Art which was to become a hub
in the international copy art circuit in the 80's and 90's. Probably the
best-known episode within mail art is an infamous incident during the late
70's where a letter by Charles Cummings was printed in the Canadian
correspondence art magazine of note FILE criticizing those who had been
bombarding the magazine's mailing lists with reams of impersonal
photocopies. Seeing the intimate nature of correspondence lost in the
process, Cummings deemed what he had received "quick copy crap... not
worth the paper it's printed on" and called it "the utmost in idle
activity." Whether it was recognized that the use of photocopy enabled
some mail artists to expand their reach into the darkest corners of the
postal network and spread their, and others', ideas more quickly and more
widely might still be a valid question to ask. Mail art, subsuming many
media, remains a footnote, albeit a very substantial one, in the history
of copy art. In the 80's, during the high point in the use of xerography
and the postal system, it was assumed that Ray Johnson played a pioneering
role in bringing the copier into an art context in his New York
Correspondance(sic) School (see Rigal). Since then, however, through the
dogged and extensive researches of the Canadian critic, Monique
Brunet-Weinmann, for her "Global History of Copigraphy" CD-ROM, it has
come to light that it was an instructor at Rochester Institute of
Technology, Charles Arnold, Jr. who made the first photocopies with
artistic intent in 1960. Worth mentioning also as an early figure was the
California Beat artist Wallace Berman, who received a Verifax copier as a
gift from a friend in 1960, but didn't begin to work with it until 1962.
Berman was also aware of the subversive use the mails could be put to and
usually distributed his well-known Semina magazine as well as staying in
touch with friends and colleagues via the post. Sources: * Vittore
Baroni."The Book(let) of Zack" Viareggio, Italy: Near The Edge/ E.O.N.,
2003. * Bloch, Mark. email to Reed Altemus 09-27-02 quoting Bill Wilson to
Valery Oisteanu New York surrealist and friend of Ray Johnson regarding
Ray Johnson's use of photocopy * Brunet-Weinmann, Monique. "For A Global
History of Copigraphy" CD ROM Montreal: Produits Loplop, 2001. *
Lipschutz-Villa, Eduardo, ed. Wallace Berman: Support the Revolution.
Amsterdam, Holland: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1992. * Rigal,
Christian. "L'electrographie (Electrography)." Col—quio/Artes 26 (61):
18-31 (June 1984). * Craig Saper Networked Art. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2001. This is a draft ©2003 Reed Altemus, no use without
permission.
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