This work was begun with
the aim of editing and
grouping new and separate
pieces of writing by extent.
Written contrary to the
progressive order in which
they have been collated,
published and might ordin-
arily be read, the method or
‘argument’ was intended to
specify nothing by way of
subject matter, other than
what might happen within
the period of writing.



Notional Questions

When did you begin the
writing?

Sometime in early February
2000.
And when was the writing
finished?

About five months later,
towards the end of June.
Why does it end where it
does?

I had no idea how long the
final piece would become,
how long I would spend on
it, but I was certain at the
start that there would be a
point where the individual
texts would become too
unwieldy to read, because
of the lack of word spacing.
I was also certain there
would be a point that would
suggest to me I had written
enough, not only because
of an inevitable slowing
down of momentum as the
entries became longer, but
that whatever it consisted of
at that particular time, the
decision would clearly be
that it was complete.
Why are there no word
spaces?

As well as being about
the actual counting of the
content, the characters
rather than the absences,
the smallest entries, those
that are to do with shape
as much as meaning, set a
style for what is to follow,
and although the exercise is
based strictly within the idea
of the written, the whole
thing aspires to its reading;
which despite being likely to
be to oneself and therefore
silent, I would hope to
have a definite reference to
listening, to something very
even and equal, without the
emphasis of an actual voice.
Was the writing made all in
the same place?

Everything was written on
the same computer, in the
same room, and although
I did quite a lot of everyday
walking, I didn’t go further
than perhaps ten or so
miles from home during
this time. So I felt very
openly disposed because
I had no pre-set subject
matter, but at the same
time quite concentrated in
a geographical sense, hoping
that everything would just
come along, and that it
would be a project based
on pursuit, in a particularly
local and unprovoked way.
Nevertheless there are
references not only to
further places but to other
times.

Those parts were either
available here already,
in books and other public-
ations, or they may have
turned-up during the period
by being heard on the radio,
for example, so they were
local in a temporal sense.
I suppose ‘temporal local-
ness’ is also a particularity
of a diary or a journal.

Although the writing
accumulated day-by-day,
as it might in a diary, the
placing of the individual
parts and the various
subjects of the individual
parts occurred haphazardly,
because of the imposition of
measurement. I have hardly
any recollection now of the
actual order of writing other
than that the longer texts
were mostly made later
rather than earlier.
It could be likened perhaps
to a daybook or ledger,
where individual entries are
taken out of their sequence
and put into an order, as
you have, based on extent.

Not exactly, because that
would be retrospective. The
difference is that, as I wrote
and cut and pasted within
the active document file,
every part immediately fil-
led an unpredicted position.
This of course affects not
only the final reading,
from start to finish, but
importantly, it affected
the choices and decisions
in the process of writing
as well. In this respect the
system of the piece differs
fundamentally from the
diaristic, because in a diary
the new is continually
following on, and whereas
a diary can be made with a
pencil and paper, this work
could only practically be
put together using a word
processing programme.
Is it significant that the
piece of work was begun
when it was, around the
beginning of the new
millennium?

A year now after the
beginning of the piece
[February 2001], it feels
that it was a very intensive
and separable period of
time. Again, I had no idea
what sort of duration or
overall extent I was invol-
ved with, and it was only at
the very end, when I had
made the decision that the
piece was finished, that it
lost its open-ended and
improvisatory nature.
I honestly do not know if
there was any conscious
significance that the period
began when it did, although
I suppose if the period
had become five years,
rather than five months,
then beginning at the start
of the year two thousand
might have suggested
that there was some signi-
ficance. I was certainly
not interested in some
sort of definitive personal
document commencing at,
and therefore marking that
particular point in time,
but I was very interested
in it having a definitive
relationship to itself, that is,
the life of the activity and its
duration.
Can you recall or suggest
anything else about it that
might inform the reader in
any way?

Finally nothing other than
what is in it.


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