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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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UPDATE: Chris Lloyd has a show on at the Art Gallery of Calgary right now (up until June 12). Go see it!
Chris Lloyd is still writing to the Prime Minister of Canada. I met Lloyd in Halifax in 1999, when the project was already underway, and we published one of his letters in Lola magazine that summer (although his website states an official start date of January 1, 2001). Lloyd's letters have been online since 2003. The diaristic style may seem unremarkable in the present day morass of blogdom, but this guy is a kind of pioneer in this strange, now common, activity of transmitting your personality, avatar-like, into a public realm. By mailing trivia about his life to the Prime Minister and announcing that fact in art galleries and magazines, Lloyd was an early adopter of that funny humble/arrogant stance of the small-time, self-made celebrity. I like the project for its extreme Canadian-ness. In this little country, it almost seems plausible that the Prime Minister might actually give a shit about the life details of his people. The fantasy is comforting and claustrophobic at the same time. Of course, I don't think Lloyd has had any discursive response from any of the PM's over the years, but he continues on as if in dialogue. Here's a quote from Friday's post:
Today is Good Friday; do you have any special plans? Any church services? Do you spend the weekend with your family? Are you a member of any secret societies? How was your visit with Bush? I saw you on the front page of the National Post and bought a copy from a newspaper box. I figured since I usually don't read the 'Post I'd just keep the cover page to use in a painting, so I left the rest of the paper in the box. It wasn't until later in the day I remembered that there was an article in that edition about my show. So I bought another copy. The article by Julia Dault isn't half bad.