ArchivesSpace at the University of Iowa

The label states that Eighty Days was made during an Australian Visit from June 13 until August 31, 1997. The cloth bag is labeled Networkers are Miners on one side and Fossick Edition on the other. On one of the photocopied sheets within the bag, the meaning of Fossick is given as Australian or New Zealand slang for to rummage or to search. Its contents are 30 works produced by students of the School of Arts at University of Ballarat that explore the themes of mining, minerals and local history of Ballarat, Australia.The case also contains a catalogue entitled "Field Study Australia" documenting international mail art exhibited at the Courthouse Project in Geelong, Australia.The plastic case is a blue color with the Australian flag embossed on its lid. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The cabinet (artist box) was designed by Mark Foxman, the cover was designed by by David Horton and the typography was designed by Susan Quasha. The works are mostly photographic, non-verbal images. The editor, David Lee Strauss, on an interview, discusses how he wanted this issue to be concerned with the fourth dimension. However, except for Robert Bowen's photograph, "Flat Irony," a surrealistic image of the NYC Flat Iron Building floating in space Mark Jenkinson's night photograph of a Los Vegas scene, I did not find the rest of the contributions successful in this regard. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The books in this assembling were made by Dellafiora's students at HUB Gallery. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The round cardboard case measuring 6.7" in diameter is made from handmade pulp such that bits of fragmented texts appear on its surface. Its lid is perforated in the center. The names of the contributors are printed on two concertinas made from red paper. One of the works has a background of the same word repetively printed in tight grid with two large empty letters, e.g., ER, superimposed = Ersatz (substitute). -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Cards and objects of the same dimensions are stacked between two square, thick wooden plywood boards that are held together by two long screws with flanged nuts. The word "between" is printed on the cover board and blind embossed on the dividing handmade thick paper sheets. Most of the artwork relates directly to the theme of this assembling, e.g., 'zwischen' in German, 'between' in English. This theme is expressed in both verbal and visual images. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Cards and objects of the same dimensions are stacked into a pyramid shaped, brightly printed, colored box. The artists and poets contributed one or several pieces to this assembling. The ceramic object made by Axel Fabry is a replica of a sunny-side up egg. The booklet is made like a sandwich. All other sheets relate to the theme of food. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

This assembling was a student project supervised by Werner Pfeiffer. It was produced on the occasion of an exhibition Half a Century of Book Arts at Pratt. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The preface was written in her own handwriting by Tracey Emin and consisted of a brief autobiography. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Jake Chapman contributed the preface. For this issue, Ken Cockburn printed a book about the Scottish poet, Robert Burns and his favorable feelings toward the French Revolution. In an introduction to two poems, Cockburn mentioned that Burns died on 3rd Thermidor. He further suggested that the French Revolutionary Calendar attempted to wean peasantry away from the use of Saints' days by designating each day with a rural name. Carrie Reichardt made a yellow, latex mold from a woman (Alison O'Dell) that reproduced part of jeans and umbilicus. Most of the other contributions have visual or conceptual artistic themes. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

The preface was written by Billy Chidish. David Breckon contributed a book entitled, "Transients" in which he provided photographs and captions for occupants of different rooms in a hotel at the same point in time. In this respect, he has utilized (knowingly or unknowingly) the format of George Perec's book, Life, A User's Manual. However, Perec employed solely verbal descriptions of the occupants and their dwelling spaces of a Parisian apartment house. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Simon Ford writes a description of John Latham's "Still and Chew" event in 1966 that produced the first British work of Conceptual Art. The aim was to extract and capture the 'essence' of Clement Greenberg's influential collection of essays entitled "Art and Culture" and at the same time demonstrate Latham's theories concerning art, event, and time. Students of Latham at St. Martins Art School chewed pages from the book which was borrowed from the library, spat them out into a container that held sulfuric acid. This was allowed to ferment into alcohol, distilled and the distillate placed into a vial. The vial was returned to the library that declined to accept it. Latham was fired from his teaching position. The vial was packaged along with documentation into a brief case and subsequently was acquired by MOMA. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Neil Crawford contributed a foreward. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.