Reply on 28-6-1995

RC: Firstly, a description of how the memo(random) project works, because that's relatively simple. When somebody contacts me for the first time or perhaps when I see someone who I think might be interesting or whose work catches my attention I will send them a memo(random form as part of my initial contact with them. The form requests "what do you remember about.....(a particular date)". On the back of the form it says "please reply on this paper to receive another memory from someone else". When I receive the completed form (which can be completed in any way the contributor wishes) I copy (if it is writing) or transpose (if it is visual) the contribution into a series of memo books. I'm working into book number seventy right now and there are getting on for six thousand individual memories. When each book is filled up I mail it to the Getty Archive in the USA.

When a contributor sends me a memory then I send them another blank form with another request for a memory together with an original from someone else so that they can continue the process of sending memories and forming a collection of originals. I often pick the day on which they sent me the previous memory to ask for the next but not always. And I do exercise some choice as to which memory I send where perhaps looking for some affricity between the memories. But not always. I also copy all the memories from the memo books into a series of files which I have in my archive and very occasionally I use some of these or extracts from these in other works. The reason why the memo books the Getty archive is that when I began the project I sent the books to Jean Brown for her to put in her archive in the USA. I had established a strong contact with Jean and she was always very supportive towards me. However, towards the end of the eighties her archive moved to California to the part of the Getty archive and my books went with it so I continue to send them there.

In the front of each memo book is written "Each memorandum contains random memories recording times passing through Robin Crozier who here records the memories for Jean Brown and future times past." I feel that the Getty archive is the right place for the books to be housed as, after all, mail- art began in the States, with Ray Johnson, and I know they will be well looked after there and form a fascinating human document for future generations (unless there is an earthquake!). I know that I began the project in February 1983 as I record each form going out and which original coming in by date and name. I don't record whose memory I send to whom - I have to have time to do other things! But exactly why I began the project in the first place is, I'm afraid, much more difficult to remember at this stage. I know that I had been involved in other publications in the seventies where I sent out requests for material then published the results and mailed them out as publications to the contributors but I think that I was beginning to feel that this kind of system was a little too ponderous and slow and also lead to an end of the project. Also I was involved in some interactive exhibitions where I had an suitant contact with the 'audience'. I had kept a daily diary since the age of eighteen. I suppose, as I may have said before, the mail art can introduce one in some way into people's private lives, can get behind the facade of the closed front door where only the letter box provides a chink in the answer. So to find out what people had been doing on a certain day could be part of this "being nosey".

Of course by no means everyone reveals themselves in this way. There are many different ways of filling up the forms. And so for various reasons, or non-reasons the idea of a continuous project emerged whereby I would 'publish' the memories to contributors almost like successive installments in an ongoing novel whilst retaining versions of all the memories in one place to be experienced as a whole. Because I am the only vessel through which all the memories pass I suppose in one sense you could say " "did" very little with the project but then without me the project wouldn't exist and so many memories would be left unrecovered and so much would have been lost to the future. Its rather the idea of the artist as instrument or a catalyst facilitating relationships. There are sounds in your room right now but you can't hear them. If you have a radio, turn it on. You can now hear the sounds. That's what I mean. You may want to return to the memo project again or ask me about some of the projects / exhibitions I worked at earlier or...........?

RJ: As a matter of fact I just had turned the radio on when I opened your letter. It is something I normally do when I get back home, a sort of touch with the outside world when I am inside. Even now I have retyped your answer and am thinking of the next question I also hear the news on the radio. What did you do when you opened my mail. How was your day today?

Reply on 28-7-1995

RC: On the day when I opened your mail I was in a house in the country in the North West of England. The area is known as the Lake District and its famous for being the place where William Wordsworth and other English poets lived and wrote. But I don't know how famous Wordsworth is outside Britain. I once asked an American about him and she had never heard of him. However there are enormous numbers of Japanese tourists who visit the area to make pilgrimages to all the sites associated with Wordsworth. What affinities they could have with the poet I just don't know. But there it is. I'm not at all interested in Wordsworth myself but just about a mile or so from the house is the village of Ambleside. Kurt Schwitters lived there from 1945 and died there in 1948. His grave is in the churchyard and I visit it now and then. Kurt is no longer there as his remains were exhumed and taken back to Germany. I don't know when. What is curious is that there is nearly always a bunch of flowers on his grave. So I suppose that others who remember him still pay a tribute. I had not been too well in the night and had a number of vivid nightmares but can't recall any of them now. Just as well. In the morning I assisted in a ritual of throwing stones with words written on them into the river. The stones had originally been taken from the river, the words had been written upon them and they had been taken into the house where they were arranged in groups in various rooms. The ritual of return involved the placing of the stones in a sequence in the meadow by the river. The stones were then returned one by one to their natural element. Also a bunch of flowers was thrown into the river to be carried down stream towards Ambleside. I had carried them from there along a lane and they had been placed in the house. I often walk along this lane. It is one of my favorite places.

Soon after lunch I left the house and took a taxi to Windermere which is about six miles away in order to catch a train. As well as my case I was carrying a parrot in a cage. Of course there were a number of Japanese visitors on the train. To travel from Windermere to Sunderland. From the North West to the North East means taking four trains but I enjoy travelling like this as I look out of the window and observe my fellow travellers. I make this journey quite often but there is always something different to take note of. This time a young woman got on one of the trains and almost as soon as it left the station she went into the toilet carrying a suitcase. She went in wearing casual clothing - jeans, sweater etc. and emerged almost ten minutes later like a brightly coloured butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. An amazing transformation had taken place. She was now wearing a suit with a very short revealing beautiful long legs with little bracelets around her ankles. Her long golden hair flowed out over her shoulders. You might suppose she was Wanda but, no, not this time. Not quite right. She sat behind me so that I couldn't see her but her image lingered in my memory.

And still does as I write this some time later. I arrived home in Sunderland in the evening and opened the mail which had arrived while I had been away.

One of the items was from you asking me "How was your day today?" Well, now you know something about the day but of course there are so many things that happened that day and so many thoughts that have now gone unrecorded. All those events lost forever. And now, looking back, I'm not even sure if what I have related did actually take place in the same day or whether its an amalgamation of different days. A memory of rituals. The rituals of travelling memories.

RJ: When I receive mail from you, I always recognize your handwriting. It seems you never use a typewriter or even a computer. Is there a special reason?

Reply on 16-8-1995

RC: Well, first of all, I suppose I actually enjoy the act of writing. My hand holding the pen to make lines and marks which become words, sentences and paragraphs which follow my thoughts line by line. I enjoy the idea that handwriting is unique, as personal as a finger print. On the other hand I have never been very interested in mechanical things, in learning techniques and processes which I often saw as hindering rather than as assisting progress. In sculpture I didn't like casting so generally carved directly. I hated framing things for exhibitions and wasn't very fond of printmaking where we had to go through lengthy operations like etching or lino cutting and then put the whole thing through a press before arriving at an image. I think I said somewhere else that this is why mail art suits me as a medium. You make it, put it in an envelope and mail it out. What could be simpler. I know that I can do this even more easily through recent technical innovations but I still prefer the 'personal touch'. Again I think that handwriting gives me time to think. It being a slowish process. I don't think that I think very quickly. I ponder on what I am saying in writing and very seldom, maybe not at all, retrace my steps to make alterations or elisions or to rewrite. I write it down carefully and leave it as I leave this answer alone.

RJ: I've noticed that for you recycling of the things you get is an important aspect. The memories you pass on, the envelopes you recycle. Is there anything you keep? What is your archive like?

Reply on 21-9-1995

RC: I didn't recycle things much to begin with. Still being in the gallery of publishing tradition perhaps where you send something out or exhibit and so on but its all one way traffic with no collaboration. The tendency now is to recycle more but when I receive a particularly interesting envelope - sometimes one I've collaborated on - sometimes not, I keep it in the box of 'particularly interesting envelopes.' This leads into 'what I keep' - my archive is in quite a small room - say about eight by twelve feet. But as you know an enormous amount of mail art can be packed into a very small space.

Years ago now I remember filling a large space at college with by no means all my archive. Well, this is roughly what my archive is like. I sit at a table looking out of a window onto a street in the town on the ground floor of my house. On the table is a fill containing a record of outgoing mail with dates and a note to say if there was a reply. There are mi-trays for incoming mail and upcoming shows, projects etc. Also a tray of a collection of slides from other mail artists. The other three walls are build with shelves so I'll look around and describe something of what I can see. The box of 'interesting envelopes'. A box of artists postcards. Shelves containing files with works by individual artists - more than fifty of these. More collections of slides and a collection of audio tapes. Books, catalogues and publications mostly predating my involvement with mail art. Below a record of all the mail shows I've been in - requests, cards, reviews etc. Also a collection of artistamps.

Below this are a number of publications in boxes like Pips and so on. Behind me are bookshelves. Here are mostly books not to do with mail art but there is quite a large collection of books by Diter Rot and also some Doc(k)s publications. Next to the shelves is a large folder containing numerous posters for mail art shows. Moving into the next wall - the one to my left we find the major part of my archive containing boxes of works by those artists who have sent me a lot of work, boxes of numerous mail art magazines and other publications and a box relating to Fluxus.

On the shelves are numerous catalogues and other publications arranged in groups such as artistamps, artists books, postage stamps, audio works, publications by individual artists, collaborative works, series like Arte Postale! and Or magazine, concrete poetry, Fluxus and so on. Don't know how many but there quite a lot. Maybe I should start counting them sometime? Then there is all the material relating to Wanda - a box full of contributions from others and my own files and boxes. A pile of incoming publications, catalogues etc. that I haven't read yet. Files containing addresses and a record of all the shows, publications I've been in plus other things like audio works, my own publications etc. There is a collection of one of each of my own publications and another of all those exhibitions where I've been the only exhibitor. Then there are all the files relating to the memo(random) project and memos waiting to be produced. Then there are a whole lot of fills etc. relating to previous projects I've undertaken and a lot of material that I use for recycling. There are also some boxes of this under my table which, I think, is ,ore or less where we began. I imagine that my archive will be similar to many others. It's quite organized but private as hardly anyone else is allowed in. But then there are so many people here with me right now in this little room. So many friends in the mind.

RJ: Yes, your archive sounds exactly like mine. To fill your archive even more I send you a finished interview of someone else. I hope you still have place for this. I guess it is now time to end the interview or is it I forgot to ask you something?

Reply on 28-9-1995

RC: Maybe I forgot to tell you something, so now we end this interview on equal terms perhaps as a metaphor for the network.

Au revoir.

RJ: Thanks for the interview Robin!

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