Mirroribis Versus Kinkos, Denver, 1996.

 Mirroribis Versus Kinkos, Denver, 1996.

(Nineties Post-Punk Zine/Pre-digital art) 

I was 25 at the time, and living in Denver with my then-girlfriend (and now wife) Heather Marx. In my spare alone time, between exploring 1990 Denver's myriad old used book and record stores and poring over ancient, out-of-print Dadaist texts, I made art and music, just like now.

I was intent to make art and express my self to a neurotic degree (still am), but I had no real technical art skills beyond high school and my experience working in print/copy shops. In 1996, digital art was just starting. Unless you had an inside, or Megabucks, you couldn't get access to the computers and programs for digital art. 

So I experimented. I used weird materials that weren't supposed to go in the machines, running them through multiple times with multiple images, hard-stopping the machines in mid run and altering the toner before it was fused. Color copying wasn't quite right yet, so there was a lot of really cool ways you could fuck things up. 

Because of this experimental, even guerilla method, I was the bane of Kinko's everywhere. No one who worked there really cared what you were doing in the self service rooms unless something was on fire, so I inevitably screwed and jammed up so many machines that I had to start being strategic about how I hit the 3 Kinkos around me. 

I wonder how much I cost them? Ah, well, the value of art. 

Here's a gallery of this little known and weird time between Xerox art and digital art, bridging punk-zine æsthetic with the beginnings of computer art. 

All collages were edited old-school, media and scissors. All images were Xeroxed from old images from dictionaries from pre-1970. 

"NO! The light of the Way!"

Xerox on white linen card stock. 

"Pain Detail"

Xerox on 20# copy bond and transparency sheets.

"Pain Variation One"

Red toner Xerox with tweaked digital copier overlay on brown paper bag. 

"Pain Variation Two"

Blue defused Xerox on manilla envelope. 

I'm pretty sure this broke the machine. 

"Scissors."

Copied scissors used for collage on color copier, ripped out of machine mid run before fusing, splashing water on the product, overlaying with transparency sheet. 

"Timpani Four of Pomegranates Variation One"

Multi run through snakeskin paper on red/black toner Xerox.

"Timpani Four of Pomegranites Varation Two"

Multi run through green felt paper on red/black toner Xerox.

"The Man Who Never Says Goodbye"

Red toner Xerox on fluorescent gloss. My favorite.