Laura Rusnak: (R) Doc Series # 1: Our Citizenry Is Ambiguous To The Democracy

 
  • ©,

Artist(s):


Title:


    (R) Doc Series # 1: Our Citizenry Is Ambiguous To The Democracy

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    2005

Medium:


    Inkjet print

Size:


    26.5 inches x 12.5 inches

Category:


Artist Statement:


    I am the child of a pack rat and a neat freak, therefore I hoard, but very specific things. I find myself continually making lists and reorganizing
    my life in an endless cycle of setting “things” in their respective places. I believe there is already an over abundance of accessible information repeatedly begging for my attention. I do not
    feel the need to create more information to add to the barrage, but to collect, recycle, and re-organize existing information, putting it into some “respective” place. In 1976, Bantam Books published The R Document by Irving Wallace. Almost 30 years, later I incidentally discovered a copy in a
    neatly bound Reader’s Digest tucked away at a Goodwill Store near my parents’ home. Although the story is nearly 30 years old, it depicts uncanny similarities to our own current political climate and legislation, such as the Patriot Act. The R Document tells the story of a political conspiracy involving an FBI director, Tynan, who would like to bring about a police state in an effort to control crime, but the proposed 35th Amendment would
    undermine the Bill of Rights. Enter our protagonist, the Attorney General, Christopher Collins.The (R) Doc Series is a group of digital collages that are the basis for a future handmade book. The series employs erasure: the act of erasing, rubbing into, scraping out or removing from existence (m-w.com) as a way of altering the original text, jus as, in many socalled “unclassified” documents, words of concern are blackened out, removing not only content, but also context. Viewers of the documents are then left with the various fragments to piece together
    into their own interpretations. The (R) Doc Series explores removal of randomly selected words to
    create a new, visual rhythmic pattern to the text, transformation of context when words of different levels of importance are obscured or erased, and finally, recycling of a time-worn text from its original linear form into a non-linear aberration.