my latest work arrived in the mail today.

it’s pretty appropriate that they arrived in the mail, since it’s an edition of postcards.

this work is a fusion of two other works, essentially. the most recent is this photo was recently published in issue #8 of Tangent. The photo, of the Sunnyside gate off Queens Boulevard in Queens, NY, was taken on 23 July 2006 during the 10-day blackout of Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside and Woodside, which effected around 100,000 people, or “25,000 customers“, depending on how you looked at it.

the work also stems from the postcard I designed for the inaugural exhibition of Normal Space @ Flux Factory, an alternative exhibition space inside my studio. the postcard for that show had the image on the front, in full-color, but was blank on the back; a URI on the front would have led people to my Normal Space weblog, where there was additional information. There was no need to print anything on the back: the date, time, place, was all on the front, the back would have merely been for ‘design sake’. Plus, by not printing on the back, it was cheaper, and that’s always a plus! But it got me thinking about the almost-superfluous need of the reverse, and how the obverse of the card as-is could operate as works in themselves. Regarding printing on the back: If there’s no need there’s no need.

So these cards, which are simply a picture of the Sunnyside gate with a ConEd worker and truck blocking access under the gate, with pedestrians about, will be left in various places throughout the effected blackout area, now, over a month after the blackout. This suspension or delay of time is crucial: how do we position ourselves now in relation to then ? How do we remember the event, or do we even recall it? Do we only recall the bad side of the story, or did any good come of it: a conversation, a social engagement, a moment that otherwise wouldn’t have happened if everything was up and running? I want the card to inspire the memory of this time and place. I ♥ Sunnyside (and western Queens at large).

I developed this work for an upcoming exhibition, and will create a map on this site of all the places where I leave the card, with documentation of some of these sites.

I ordered 100 cards, but as is with printing processes it’s never exact, so the edition is of 135. However I would like to save some for my archives and to mail to people, so I am thinking of sticking with ‘100’ for the number that get left around western Queens, and 35 to distribute otherwise.