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Launch date: 23 May 1997 online at http://www.backspace.org/instone
and at 'transmedia '97 Berlin' 23/5 - 1/6/97.
Presentation: 26 June 1997, 6pm, at the Centre for Electronic Media,Slade School of Art, Gower Street, London WC1, in conjunction with:

Kiss the Bony Structure is a new artwork commissioned by Camerawork for the Internet, developed from an earlier work, The Word beyond Speech; an interactive text inspired by the 'OuLiPo' author Georges Perec. In 'Kiss the Bony Structure', words refuse meaning and interpretation, instead offering themselves as playful exercises; frames fold in on themselves, lists course across the screen, words reveal themselves as mere combinations of letters awaiting formal application. Text is offered as a game; a system of exchange between author and reader, offering redirection rather than reward in response to participation.

The work draws attention to the ways in which structures and processes of the computer medium manipulate reception and understanding. Developed in part from the study of the conceptual structures (or network languages) which provide systems analysts with the ubiquitous 'working models', in the spirit of OuLiPo, the work imitates chance whilst obeying a law. If this structure or code is the message, it is a message-site carefully arranged as a response to both the Internet as a repository for useful/useless information and to its potential to
constitute a new language experience beyond speech. The 'bony structure' of the title refers to the academic conceit that aesthetics is 'the bony grammar' of Art.

Jeff Instone is a veteran text artist who has moved from written paintings and drawings, and whose work has been variously described as "strange scribblings"; BBC Radio, "curious-dull"; Sarah Kent, Time Out. The Guardian has called him "an artistŠnot worth his salt", whereas The Cyberspace Lexicon sees his work
"exploring the leading edge of digital textworks-stylish, insightful and witty".

Kiss the Bony Structure is an 'un R est' work directed by Jeff Instone in residence at Camerawork, with contributions from Julian Weaver. Commissioned for the Internet by Camerawork, with support from the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England, Southern Arts International Initiatives and Backspace.

see the Exhibition