WIG 2
edited by Kristen Gallagher and Tim Shaner
Contributors: Steve Benson, Laynie Browne, Del Ray Cross, Thom Donovan, Patrick Durgin, William Fuller, Kristen Gallagher, Judith Goldman, Brandon Holmquest, Rodney Koeneke, Richard Kostelanetz, Bill Marsh, Tim Shaner, Sigmund Shen, and Carol Szymanski.
Wig is a low-budget magazine devoted to poetry and art that appropriates the job for its own artistic purposes. Not always “about” work, the wig-artist may employ his or her labor for poetic or artistic ends that implicitly critique the virtue of productivity through the act of poaching company time and/or materials. The wig-artist often “writes work” (Spahr) in relation to a “laboring society” (Arendt) that has little or no appreciation for the work of making art. The form of the work will often reflect compromised time and/or attention. The title of the magazine alludes to Michel de Certeau’s discussion of la perruque: “the worker’s own work disguised as work for his employers.”
“It was a typical entry level job. I tried during my job to do my other work, that without an economy, only to realize there was little hope. This was my attempt to get around the problem and write work. [...] I collected notes from my boss’s memos, things I had seen [or] over-heard. I collected them into one long stream of day/text and barely edited them.”
–Juliana Spahr, Live
“The limits imposed by work represent not simply an obstacle but an opportunity for writing—not least because the workplace is the site of common activity and therefore enables us to bear witness to our common experience.”
–Kit Robinson, “Time and Materials”
“There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning—that event which I may not have found, but on whose path I seek myself—is not earned by work.”
–André Breton, Nadja
To order a copy contact Tim Shaner @ twshaner [at] comcast [dot] net