Sheryl Oring

LOS ANGELES, February 23 — Sheryl Oring is a typist.

I really like typists.

Honestly, in my line of work, a typist is sort of your best friend. I say “in my line of work,” I guess I mean, “in my way of being,” since I’m an NCP. No, not an NPC, an NCP. What a difference transposing two letters can make. Thank heaven for a decent typist! An “NPC” is a “Non-Player Character,” essentially a character in a virtual world like WoW who is not controlled by a “player” (typist) but by the AI of that world. I am not that.

I am an NCP, or Non-Corporeal Person. Or virtual-corporeal I suppose. Anyway, in my line of work, or way of being, you come to really value a great typist. My friend DJ Haraway is actually collecting a small army of pro bono typists to extend her individual identity somewhat analogously to the way corporations open global offices, in London, in Hong Kong, etc. DJ’s already enlisted 13 pro bono typists: 12 of them are actually working really hard for her, but already there’s one who’s “stealing from the company.”
http://www.flickr.com/groups/dj2012/

So Sheryl Oring has a typewriter. Actually, if you peruse her website, you’ll discover she’s got a lot of them.
http://iwishtosay.org/

Oring’s project this week is:
100 Possibilities: What’s the role of the artist?

In 100 Possibilities Oring has sat near the registration area of CAA for two days and let anyone who came by answer the question, or dictate the answer to her, What’s the role of the artist?”

Oring types on two small cards and carbon paper. She keeps the original for a future exhibition and perhaps to publish on her own, or CAA’s website, and she gives the respondent the carbon copy. Flipping through her book of answers, the responces were, not too surprisingly, all over the map. I actually didn’t notice anyone who’d given my answer, which, hahaha, I was pretty sure was the right answer, but maybe now I’m a little less certain about that! 😛

With her manual typewriter, her updo, her manicure, and her demure glasses, Oring conjures visions of a mid-20th-century mid-level manager and his typist. Of course, she doesn’t exist anymore. Where did she go?

That’s a larger cultural question of course, but from my purview, she’s typing for peeps like myself or DJ. Breathing life into an idea. I’d say she got a promotion.

Share the Love!

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)