For details on how to participate in 1708 Gallery’s next exhibition, please read the following statement by the artist:
In 2010, the Texas Board of Education passed legislation to remove Thomas Jefferson from history textbooks. Soon after, the board voted to strike the word “democratic” from references to the U.S. government.
The Liberty of Empire is an exhibition that takes the form of a provisional laboratory. The first stage of this project involves interviewing local citizens as to what they think is relevant to the practice of history. I am particularly interested in what students and instructors think should be included in archive of history. History, as we have seen, is a highly contested space. I propose a dialog about this subject and I welcome your participation. Please submit your response via the questionnaire at this website:
http://www.matthewfriday.net/research/?page_id=160
The information submitted will be collected and fed into a specially designed computer program that interprets the future and past tense as a set of fractal attractors/resistors and creates a set of vector diagrams. These diagrams are printed onto sheets of velum and after consulting a randomly oscillating magnetic pulse generator, they will be placed onto a corresponding section of a site specific mural based on Thomas Jefferson’s architectural plans for Monticello. During the course of the exhibition, drawings will slowly accumulate, obscuring the historical image of utopia painted on the wall, replacing it with new maps of potentiality. This project focuses on the co-evolution of a community, which is always conceived of as an emergent public space that exists within and through its relations. To this end, visitors can continue to submit their thoughts regarding utopia via a website or on-location computer, adding to the growing archive of diagrams.
