Tim Etchells (born 1962, lives and works in Great Britain)
City Changes (2008) inkjet prints
Based on performance, Tim Etchells’ artistic practice manifests itself in many different forms. Etchells is interested in exploring the creative potentials and limitations of rules and linguistic systems.
The biennial presents Etchells’ text-based work
City Changes, which describes and re-describes a town, first as an urban space of stasis and routine, and then as one of constant changes. Etchells has continuously rewritten the text and colour-coded the changes in order to visualise the contradictory versions that the text, and ultimately, the city space undergo.
An influence for the work was the “track changes” function in word processing software. Rewritten by several persons, text documents become colourful, slightly schizophrenic, endlessly commented on, cut and expanded. In a similar way,
City Changes is a “layered document” which allows the reader to explore the text and view the underlying process in a visual, almost archaeological way.
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