The other copies of this assembling belong to Geof Huth, Nancy Huth, Erin Huth, Timothy Huth, Ficus Strangulensis, and John M. Bennett. Three copies are still held by Geof Huth. The archival envelope that houses the pieces is numbered 255950. Geof Huth provides extensive documentation on this project which is reproduced as follows. FILM CLIPS # 4 A SELF-DESTRUCTING COMPILATION OF CULTURAL ICONOGRAPHY AND MAIL ART O + + + + + . + + + + + R THE ILLEIST'S FRAME OF REFERENCE ENTOMBED WHAT ABOUT THIS IS ABOUT A bagazine of mailart and the ephemeral evidence of the culture we burrow through, "Film Clips" gives us some idea of the changing ways of documenting the world over the course of time. Ge(of Huth)'s life as an archivist and an occasional packrat have allowed him access to all kinds of materials just before their owners have destroyed them forever. He collected these with no idea in mind of what to do with them, and eventually "Film Clips" came to be. The proximate impetus for this series, however, was the Mike Film mailart project, wherein participants distributed frames cut from an 8mm film by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE. Huth's method of distribution of the frames has been to moil them forward in some of the issues of "Film clips" But "Film Clips" continues with or without those frames of film. Now, this magazine brings together a small collection of original works from mailartists and a large quantity of cultural detritus documenting small incomplete comers of the world and giving evidence of the various ways in which humans attempt to save information. "Film Clips" presents pure information. THE ENCLOSURE THAT HOLDS First, we begin with the alkaline envelope (once pH 8.5, now verging towards 7 or worse in spots) that house the pieces; it is khaki, a color preferred by some archivists to distinguish alkaline enclosures from acidic; each envelope has a six-digit number-once, an accession number for a now-immaterial information object, and, now, a unique number distinguishing each numbered item from the other-handwritten in black pen on its wide flat face and its premlip; and Ge(of Huth) handwrote "Film Clips k 4" on the face of the envelope in silver pen. The number of this envelope is 255950. THINGS INSIDE OF WHICH BE Inside the envelope, we find an engraved insignia from a bond certificate, a brochure explaining the mission of New Vorh State's reference and research library resources councils (the famed 3Rs), a color slide of what appears to be southwestern American Indian art (rubberstamped "Film Clips Nr 4'), a large self-adhesive label designed to be placed over the page of a labor-management contract (also rubberstamped as port of "Film Clips," a filmdipped reprint from the March 1973 issue of Reader's Digest (in case anyone ever missed its anti-liberal bias), an incomplete charter membership card to the defunct Textile Workers Union of America (add your name and become a member), a square of four transfer prints (three of them military, and the fourth a scarlet tanager), another copy of the filmclipped reprint from the March 1973 issue of Reader's Digest (but this time the filmclipping is rubberstamped to a forerunner of the modern sticky note), a small filmclipped card explaining the supposed origins of the term "Tar Heels" meaning those from North Carolina, a blank but filmclipped teacher schedule for secondary schools in the Schenectady City School District, a double-sided white card with poetic visualizations by Ficus Strangulensis (on one side "Invocation" and on the other "flute nap frothed'), a paper phonorecord each with an original and unique recording made in a school district somewhere in New York's Hudson Valley, a one-page three-deck sample of blank checks (one of them filmdlpped) from the checkbook of the defunct Composition Roofers' and Waterprooferi Employers' Association of Greater New York and Vicinity (once good at New Netherland Bank of New York), a filmclipped announcement for the Family exhibit at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, a sheet of paper explaining tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Mike Film project including a sampling of actual film clips from the original 8mm film (this project was the impetus for "Film Clips" itself, and this issue of "Film Clips" constitutes participation in the Mike Film project), an aerial quad photo taken somewhere In New York State on the 6°' day of April in 1968 (when I was still only 7; this item is fihndipped on the tack and includes a adhesive label announcing the New York State Archives' Dutch Colonial Papers project funded in 2000 by Save America's Treasures, as well as a sticker celebrating the Mid-Atlantic Archives Conference's 30th anniversary in 2002), a heavy full-color and fairly grotesque slide of medical abnormalities, an original handwritten visual poem by John M. Bennett on Dec 06 2002 with black ink and pink pencil and rubberstarmped authentication, a filmdipped and Save-America's-Treasures-labeled disk mailer (inside of which are stored a filmclipped label showing the abandoned logo of the New York State Education Department, a filmclipped copy of the booklet A Dictionary of the Queen's English [which is actually an antidictionary of North Carolinian pronunciation), and a MARAC-labeled example of an actual library card catalog card), a small zipper-locking plastic boggle holding a few yards of old reel-to-reel audiotape that my wife's family never got around to using to tape the voices of its children, a non-photo blue pencil used to mark up layout sheets, and a white correction pencil for spirit duplicating stencils suitable for correcting the past. And "Film Clips" includes this sheet explaining what it actually is. WHY WOULD YOU HAVE THIS BE? The tendency in everyone's life to act automatically, to think automatically and to be automatic causes us to Ignore the world and miss certain facts of it. "Film Clips" by presenting a collection of ostensible trash enwrapping a few items of art forces you to paw through the past, entices you to consider the changes wrought upon meaning and meaning-making and meaning-preserving over time What does a blank form mean? How did a check used to look? In what form was sound and sight captured? "Film Clips" exists to ask these questions inside your head. "Film Clips" has no answers for you. HOW WE MOVE STILL FORWARD After a long absence, "Film Clips" has returned to confound and bewilder the few people who ever run across It This compilation will continue at irregular intervals in the future, taking the form of a can or a box or a bag or an envelope filled with meanings extracted from their original contexts. Ge(of Huth) will eventually find a set of co-conspirators to participate in this project and release another issue. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.