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Four Letter Words
Project working with the artist Scott King. His words: My idea was to impose a set of rules in the tradition of Conceptual Art... in the tradition of the famous Sol Le Witt maxim: 'the idea becomes a machine that makes the art'. But I also wanted to ‘vulgarise’ this, to make it low brow. My rules were simple: four x four letter words in four colours... at least one word of which must be a ‘swear word’. I was aiming at insults - insults in the tradition of Malcolm Tucker, the foul-mouthed communications director in the TV show, ‘The Thick if It': you know, unexpected language, his frustration and fury leading him into previously unimaginable insult territory. So, I wanted the restrictions I had imposed - four x four letter words - to almost cancel out the insult, for the language to become meaningless, the 'swear words' reduced to 'just words'. These are just an exercise really... a test... or a personalised and unique insult created for the 'consumer', it depends how you want to see it.
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