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25
MULTIMEDIA
INSTALLATION / EVENT
STOCK EXCHANGE OF THE SENSATIONAL
CENTRE
GEORGES POMPIDOU, PARIS
JUNE 1982
For
a period of five weeks, the artist turns an exhibition space
in the Centre Pompidou into the nerve center of a nationwide
exchange of fictitious news items that are composed by members
of the public. It is equipped like the headquarters of a news
wire service with a phone bank (handling up to 8,000 calls
a day), a computerized database, video production facilities,
and a full range of office equipment. Working 24 hours a day,
its staff of 15 are responsible for gathering, editing, displaying,
archiving, and rating the news items—tabloid-type stories
with an emphasis on sex, death, transgression, the unusual,
and the absurd (not unlike much of modern art)—that
are sent in from outside “correspondents” and
produced on the spot by visitors. A national toll-free number
set up so that interested members of the public can find out
the highest rated story of the day. The operation lays bare
the blurring of the boundaries between information, art, commerce,
and the collective subconscious that is so characteristic
of postmodern culture.
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