To The Power of Three 2012
Abigail Thomas, UK
| To The Power of Three
started out as an exercise or personal performance, which consisted
of repetitively copying out lists of Google search results by hand
into an old style school exercise book. The first search was through
Google Web, the second Google
Books, the third Google Scholar;
the results restricted to just three web pages in length. The search
term used is the same for each search; 'Al-Mutanabbi
Street'. The process of making was also a process of learning by repetition through Google search results, copying them in order to better retain the information and discover what happened to links and the information contained within them when taken away from their web of endless connections. The next stage in the making of the work was another form of copying; photocopies of an exercise, documentation of a document. Withdrawing the original from the work further removes the information's usefulness and readability, rendering the document an ephemeral reproduction or an imperfect copy. These gatherings of documents provide a snapshot into a particular moment of time, a time where we are well within the 'information age', where we now believe we have the potential of access to all information collected on the WWW. The internet dominates how most people get their information, how they communicate with each other and how they access the most up to date news stories. There is a sea of endless articles, web pages and documents with links to more information and links from those, but how much can you really find out about something when you try to? This bookwork is an edited, uncomprehensive, and effectively unusable list of hyper-link opportunities; a frustrating document that captures non-information (if there is such a thing) in a rote school fashion. The exercise book as document, but a document to what? Al-Mutanabbi Street as a name, as a search term, as a group of words, as information, or even as non-information? Abigail Thomas lives and works in London.  everyweekness@gmail.com www.abithomas.blogspot.com/
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