Content Not in Evidence

Geof Huth, "Content Not in Evidence" (16 April 2011)
In a couple of weeks, I'll be in Bury, England, for the Text Festival, masterminded by Tony Trehy. As part of that festival, I was responsible for providing two sets of artworks for exhibition to the Bury Art Gallery: 100 calligraphic visual poems on cards and a single electronic file that representing a modern tradestamp. (Tradestamps, apparently, are marks stamped on freight containers to indicate the contents through images so that they would be interpretable by people no matter the languages they spoke or their levels of literacy.)

I sent the cards in March in two shipments, the latter shipment leaving Albany, New York, on 21 March 2011. The trade stamp, however, I kept mulling over. I had no real idea, though I had the idea of preparing a visual poem within a rectangle and having it made into a rubberstamp. Not much in terms of content.

The cards were the easy part, even though I made each card specifically for the Text Festival, and even though I created at least half of the visual poems specifically for this event. I mailed them off in two boxes to enhance the chances that something would make its way to Bury. Also, the week between mailings allowed me the time to make the second set of cards.

What I didn't count on was the fact that my fear would come true. It's now been 25 days since I sent the second set of cards, and they have yet to arrive in Bury. Because of this unfortunate turn of events, I decided on a possible tradestamp a few days ago. It is nothing more than a manipulated scan of my receipt for my customs declaration for the box that never made it to Bury. My customs declaration declared what was in the box, just like a tradestamp. My contemporary tradestamp declares, by its distorted information, that the contents are unknown, the box is lost, there is nothing to know about the contents of something that doesn't exist.

In some sense my tradestamp is akin to derek beaulieu's, the story of which you can find at his blog. derek sent, by UPS, a box of nothing but a single sheet of paper (he says an A4 sheet, but since he's in Canada I assume it's a letter-size sheet), and the markings on the box label, along with the usual explanation of insurance costs and the barcodes, serve as the tradestamp for this conceptual work. (Read derek's blog for more explanation.)

I didn't insure my box.

derek beaulieu's Box of Nearly Nothing to Bury
ecr. l'inf.