Carolina: final proposal

The scrivener

It borders on cliche to observe that never before we’ve been enabled with so many communication capabilities and yet we communicate more poorly and badly than ever. This apparently obvious statement is easily spotted in our daily routines when we are inundated  with streams of information from which we hardly get a message.

I haven’t received a long, well thought letter (or e-mail) from my friends or family in years, and it’s been almost 2 years since I wrote my last letter to someone. Written conversations seem more difficult to have (unless you think of IM as written communication) and the thought and time invested in communication has decreased dramatically to give space to immediacy.

In an effort to re-explore a way of communication that was dear to my generation (as perhaps we were the last ones to experience it) I am planning to do a documentary/performance that consists of going to public spaces carrying a typewriter and a desk, envelopes and stamps and will propose topics-receivers to the audience to write, eg: “writing to the father”. “writing to the lover”. The letters will be carbon copied and will be composed by me. Depending on the topic I will read an extract form famous letters or books to the sender at first, and get them inspired on the topic. They will have the choice of letting me mail the letter or mailing it themselves, but I will ask to retain a carbon copy of every letter. That might be used (or not) in  another iteration of the work.