Oturn

Secret ballet

A political thriller composed entirely of example sentences of the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1987)

'Secret Ballet' appears to be the easy-to-read autobiography of Jane Swallow, a (fictional) conservative politician. The book describes Jane's troubled private and family life, her creative ambitions, personal intrigues and affairs as well as her clumsy attempts at political mud-slinging and character assassination.

The working approach was to re-construct a fictional shattered mastertext that was thought of as being dispersed across the entire dictionary.

By bringing together the then current topics, phrases and ways of speaking, »Secret Ballet« reflects the totality of ideas and opinions of the late 60's, 70's and early 80's.

Additional information about Secret ballet

Other work

Photo composites, a composite text, a pixel drawing, etc.

• The rug (the slave);
• Strassenszenen;
• Hafentreppe;
• Photography: Here is how, etc.

Probe

Probing into other people's stuff, critique

• Notre musique (Godard);
• Psychedelic art;
• diCorcia's 'Streetwork' series;
• Alexander's Pattern language;
• A theory of presentation, etc.

Sketch

Essay-type stuff, sketches of concepts and ideas

• Post-autonomous practice;
• Laikologie;
• Conversational art;
• Negating art;
• Breaking the rules;
• Fields of photographic practice;
• Map of photographic genres, etc.

Rugs

Rug analyses: Attribution, design, technical description, and photos

• A theory of rugs;
• Kurdish village Bijar with diamond pattern, human figures, and herd;
• Kurdish Hamadan rug with sickle leaf design;
• Anatolian large-pattern Holbein rug, etc.

Trip

Texts around information systems, public transport, interchange engineering (mosty by John Lindsay)

• Information Systems—Fundamentals and Issues;
• Suburban satyrs;
• You are here, etc.

INDELIVERABLE

Tourism interfaces; attempt at inverting a fictional EU-funded project

• Sketch of a critique of tourism;
• Brussels inside and outside;
• Photographs of Palermo + Monreale (tourism interfaces), etc.

Marsyas

Collection of material around Marsyas (Greek mythology)

• Marsyas entry in Lempriere's Classical Dictionary

Gespaltener christlicher Glaube

Eine pychoanalytisch orientierte Religionskritik (Hermann Fischer)

• Vorwort;
• Freud;
• Jesus;
• Paulus;
• Luther