Archive of Shredded Catalogues

speaker

00:04

Michalis Pichler (MP)

Ehmm …

00:13

MP

So we can start now…

00:14

Andra Joeckle
(AJ)

I wanted to record the room, one minute-

00:33−00:36

MP

Can you hear all this, out there?

00:44−00:48

MP

Lots of machine sounds, swishing around in the air.

00:55 bis 01:07

AJ

So in your last project, you work with an instrument, a shredder. Could you briefly describe what kind of project that is, and which role the machine plays in it?

1:10

MP

Yes, i am currently building up an archive: The Archive of Shredded Catalogues, where people, artists in the first place, but not only, also authors in the wider sense, can leave publications to me, which they are sort of unhappy with, and which then get shredded and archived.
And that is actually about... it is about the possibility... this archive is maybe an offer to people to perform an absurd action, for my part maybe also the possibility to distance oneself with a symbolic but also stalwart gesture from printed products, with humour maybe.

2:12 bis 2:13

AJ

And how does that function concretely?

2:14 bis 2:44

MP

Concretely it functions, the whole thing is structured in a way, that not only an object gets destroyed, but it also gets archived, for the one part the title of the publication, place and year of publication, then the name of the person who submitted it, and then this publication gets shredded and stored in shredded form, together with the documentation sheet.

2:45 bis 2:54

AJ

And how does the machine look, the shredder? How big is it, where do you get it, how long it takes and which sound it makes?

2:55 bis 3:49

MP

Well I have to say that I don't own a shredder myself, ehm, but a shredder is widely used in our contemporary environment, in the first place in administrative bodies and solicitor's offices, where sensitive data or papers in general - which may underly data protection in one or the other way or are confidential - get disposed and destroyed, and normally this machine has a slot, where you can feed in a number of sheets or a booklet, and then - similar to a meat mincer - the paper gets chopped into strips and comes out as some sort of tinsel or confetti in the back.

3:48 bis 3:53

AJ

So you have to take the catalogue apart into singular sheets and then …?

3:53 bis 4:50

MP (interrupts)

(smiling sympathic)

No, that depends on the shredder, I have to say, I dont, like I said, don't have one of my own, but -when I have a larger amount of submissions, at the moment it is all still very humble - then I will rent one, and maybe once again at a later point.
The object itself is not an exhibition item then, or maybe process-oriented it is, as a project one could shred in the exhibition space, while, well it is rather not a performance, rather an archive, where the action of shredding or letting-shred is part of, too.

4:51 bis 5:00

AJ

And why shred and not for example burn it or bury, or throw into the Spree (Berlin river), or dispose in any other way?

5:01 bis

6:01

MP

Yes, this is a justifiable question, while the question is also, if it is only about disposal, or maybe also about the possibilty to make a statement. But maybe I rather answer in particular, well, burning is certainly quite difficult, without referencing Bebelplatz and the book burnings (1933).
And there are extremely few cases where somebody burned a publication and was able to say something different, for example Bruce Nauman when he burned "Various Small Fires" an Ed Ruscha artist book, but that was rather an hommage to Ed Ruscha, or a conscioulsy exercised tautological short-circuit, because on the singular burned pages there were also depictions of small fires.
To throw it into the Spree would also be nice, one could do that, well it would be some kind of environment pollution.
To abandon it on a park bench with uncertain future, that's very good, but that would be another archive, or maybe not an archive, too.
The shredding is a way, how can I say it - why shred? - well it is a very banal way of document obliteration, which is already widely practiced, and which I try to appropriate in an absurd or playful way, or to offer it to other people as a platform.

6:50

AJ

Did you also entrust one of your own catalogues to that shredder, or do you plan to do that?

7:00

MP

Yes, indeed .. one has, I got to say, I have quite a few, mainly from group shows. And catalogues play an important role in the so-called art-world, as seriosity-dummies.
"Once you busy yourself with art, you will always fall from one catalogue to the next", as Broodthaers put it.
If an exhibition wants to be taken seriously, most of the time catalogues get printed, and what comes out, usually qualifies for the shredder.
Often one has a page or a spread then and has to provide a "statement" or even a passport picture of oneself.

And all these are representation modes of ones work, which one maybe cant identify with, sometimes in retrospect, or at the time, even. And yes, well, there are quite a few catalogues of mine, which I entrusted to the archive myself.

8:13 bis 8:19

AJ

Contingently also your milksaw-machine? This is also a quaint, greatly absurd apparatus that you once built?

8:20 bis

MP

Yes, that's right, a couple of years ago I built a milksaw, which I still kind of like, well, it's stored in my basement today. But a catalogue where it was depicted, a competition catalogue, I indeed handed it over to the Archive of Shredded Catalogues.

(shredding sound)

Michalis Pichler

oh, that's great ... now we will see
... ok

One can hear how M takes the shredded test sheets out of the bottom of shredder, bag crackling, snippet rustling in the box, shuts the shredder's door.

1:13 bis 1:16

Andra Joeckle

So now you are shredding a catalogue of yours?

1:17 bis 1:22

M

Ehm, Andra, before we talk, let me photograph them.

Well I don't usually do this in the copyshop, but now i have to do it.
Now they have been documented.

1:38 bis 1:40

A (sceptical)

You photograph what you are shredding?

Puts a sheet of paper on the floor, shooots it, turns it, shoots again with Digicam

2:22

MP

o. k.
We have a catalogue here from Ulrike Mohr and she -

AJ (interrupts because of problems with the recording device)

–just a minute

AJ

Yes, what are you holding in your hand?

MP

This is an artistic catalogue,yes, an exhibition catalogue, well it's only one A3-sheet, but anyway, by Ulrike Mohr and she gave it to me for the Archive of Shredded Catalogues.

2:55 bis 3:00

AJ

And now describe the shredder, how it looks, for someone who can't see it.

MP

There is a big inscription
„The use is subject to a fee.“
Well nowadays one can.... one doesn't have to own a shredder to use it, every copyshop has one, or almost every solicitor's office, where docments have to be destroyed....
Yes, it is approximately 60 x 60 cm, 1 meter high, quite heavy machine

3:31

AJ

(shredding sound)

and that was it already

MP

That was it.

AJ

The whole catalogue in...

4:00

MP (pushes the snippets together)

So the pieces get taken out now, well that gets also archived later on, the snippets.

Rather ask me, why she shr..., or why she submitted this catalogue.

AJ

Yes, why did she submit it?

4:08

MP (beepbeep in the background)

Well, I think, that Ulrike Mohr, she rather liked her catalogue, but it, ehm, had one, two orthographical errors, and she took that as a motive to submit it.

Bis 4:29

AJ

MP
(says that smiling, interesting subtext)

Yes one ... now it is hard to recapitulate, well now... no, one comma was missing and once: grammatical error, yes.

Now I have here form Nele Mustermann:
„Zukunftssicher für für Hamburg“. (Save future for Hamburg) A catalogue from Vattenfall Europe.
She is not directly an author in it, although authorship is not necessarily precisely defineable. She worked on it as a designer, and well, I'd say, in real existing late capitalism - like Polke and Co. already named it, well they said "real existing capitalism" (Real existierender Kapitalismus)- authorship is already quite fragmented, and I'd say, since she is part of it as a designer with her work, that is already sufficient to me, that she is eligible to submit it.

(whispering) and why?

AJ

So, and this ...

MP

Why?

AJ

What why?

MP

Why she didn't...

AJ

Yes, then tell us, why, but slowly, before you ..

MP

Yes, she kind of, she was hired at a design agency, which again as a subcontractor for Vattenfall layed out and developed this advertisement booklet „Zukunftssicher für Hamburg“, and she actually only later found out, that the advertised coal-power-plant as a little side-effect would double up the CO2-emission of Hamburg.
And yes, now decided, to give me this catalogue for the Archive of Shredded Catalogues.
If she had taken this job if she knew before, well, you can argue about it. But fact is, that this is in any case a relevant, relevant contribution, and I am certainly satisfied, that like this the spectrum of archived shredded catalogues gets expanded beyond the, well not only the so-called art-world, but also the real world, while this separation is questionable anyway.

7:01

AJ

So, and now it gets fed into this 1centimeter wide...

7:04

MP

It gets fed into this 1centimeter wide slot up here

AJ

Without having to tear it apart beforehand..

MP

It doesnt get torn apart, even the stitch binding- nonsense, staple binding- can also stay.

AJ

but-

MP

it's gonna be alright

AJ

office clamps

MP

office clamps would be a little bit thick, yes

AJ
(shredding sound interrupts)

So and now you switch on ..

7: 24 bis 7:29

7:33

AJ

MP

AJ

(paper bag rustling)

Exactly, now...

And take...

MP

Now the result gets taken out.
Looks beautiful, doesnt it?

AJ

Shake it a little bit!
(MP shakes)

Nicely colourful ... yellow

7:51

MP

I'm sure you can make a great poem with it

AJ

MP

Tristan Tzara... instruction how to write a dadaist poem: cut a newspaper and glue it on a paper randomly.

8:12

AJ

Yes and how much will it all cost you now?

MP

We will soon find out.