CLOOPSEEND

This poster is a riff on the ideas from two other artworks: the found object C LOOPSEEND (1985) by Tom Phillips and the concrete poem Sweethearts (1967) by Emmett Williams. 

The Tom Phillips artwork is an open/closed sign that worked with a slider to move between the two words. By presenting the object with the slider removed, Phillips breaks down the distinction between the two states and introduces the word LOOP. In his book/poem, Williams uses the letters that make up the word 'Sweathearts' and removes letters to reaveal new words and meanings. 

The CLOOPSEND poster begins with 'open' and ends with 'closed', using the alignment of the interlaced words to reveal a series of other words that link to each other through mean and/or sounds on the way: open / loops / con / on / seen / cops / seen / lose / lose / pen / lop / clop / lend / send / end / closed.

The poster was printed letterpress at in the dark basement of Camberwell College of Arts, hence the rather blurry photographs of the process. The modular working process of letterpress composition linked the mental process of breaking up the words with the physical activity of handling the letters and moving them around.