it’s so over..

26Oct07

Well, I did it, put up some last posters, wandered around town, listened to some Nick Drake, felt a bit melancholic (and really full after a ridiculously large schnitzel)and went to bed. For a while, before I woke from nightmares about really long mullets…

And as I lay there I began to think again about this whole doppelganger thing. Having kind of lost my ‘bock’ for the idea, as they say in Deutsch, I kind of came round to things again. Over supper I had been dissecting the idea with some friends.. That as with most art works for public space, it is pretty difficult to gauge any effect you have had on a ‘broader’ public. But that I felt that really not touched enough people, that the work had really not been ‘visible’ enough

A critical ‘problem’ with finding my doppelgangers was that, even if they called me, when it came to the point of meeting, everyone got cold feet. Which I totally understand (as i got cold feet as well) But also it exposed them, at this point they became vulnerable. In some ways it says quite a lot about the way these people perceived public space (as this was always where i suggested meeting) that they felt threatened meeting an unknown entity there.

But, in my midnight thinkings I had a rare moment of lucidity. That, Oxford-Bonn context aside, in a world of 6 billion individuals there must be at least a few who look, if not identical to me, then pretty darn similar. That thought alone keeps me interested. For this project I was interested in searching, in seeing how to present the idea in a non-art context (hence the homemade flyers etc). In seeing how my perception of a city would change if I put up posters of my face around the place. But, doubting the efficacy of this, of the ’subtle’ work becoming almost ‘invisible’, I think I am actually interested in the result now. I mean, maybe I should employ all methods available, use media, use galleries, really try and find this person. Make it an ongoing process. I was all about ‘the journey’, but maybe the journey’s overrated…

I’ll leave you with this. One last doppelganger suggestion which I do quite like. Thanks for watching. Laters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2drsTviOAI

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