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This is interactive is an ongoing artist's experiment by Andrew Coulter Enright conducted throughout Baltimore, Maryland since January 2000.

As featured in the Baltimore City Paper.

The experiment consists primarily of the unsanctioned public display of textual stickers, signs and stencils. The texts in and of themselves are fully meaningless; they are simple and often seem like juvenile riddles or paradoxes. Their power as a cohesive work lies in both the tradition of conceptual, public and graffiti art, and the meanings the viewer brings to each sticker as he or she encounters them throughout their travels in the city. The phrases are structured in such a way as to provoke a response from the viewer, one fully determined by either the viewer himself or the context in which he discovers the statement. This reliance on personal and physical context rather than content causes my work to request a discourse with the viewer rather than deliver an aesthetic lecture. By only functioning as art once the viewer has provided a piece of himself, the works automatically fulfill a personalized role for the viewer. The statements aim to make the viewer aware of his own cognition and apply that brief insight to other small and meaningless things he may encounter further down the street. It is rare in everyday life that we are instantly taught how we are thinking. This response of self-examination to my work often makes people uncomfortable, even though the statements themselves are far from inflammatory. In following my aim for a discourse with the public about everyday cognition, the viewers have responded. This discomfort often drives people to respond directly to my stickers. The written replies I find scrawled on my signs and stickers fully prove my statements are functioning as hypothesized. Some are witty and understanding of what I am attempting. Others ask questions. And still other viewers simply rip down my work, assuming it is some sort of invasive advertising. I aim to document all interaction with the public in regard to this body of work, as well as most of the locations I have displayed my texts. There are approximately 1,100 stickers throughout Baltimore City. This site is the primary location of all my documentation.

To the right you will find an image of each of the stickers currently up. Clicking on each image will open a gallery window in which you will be able to navigate the documentation for each sticker. I consider photographs themselves, as the only record of the discourse and interaction formed, far more valuable than my prints and stickers. The photos are the work representative of this entire experiment. They are the work shown in galleries. They are the art.

For a much more thorough essay about this piece click here.

Any and all comments or questions about this work can be directed to: andyenright@aol.com.

 

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