Notepad
Matt Kenyon (American, born 1977)
and Douglas Easterly (American,
born 1968)
of SWAMP (USA, est. 1999)
2007
Ink on paper
8 1/2 x 11 x 3/4" (21.6
x 27.9 x 1.9 cm)
The Notepad is an act of protest and
commemoration disguised as a stack
of ordinary yellow legal pads. Each ruled
line, when magnified, is revealed to be
microprinted text enumerating the full
names, dates, and locations of each
Iraqi civilian death on record over the
first three years of the Iraq War. The
designers imagine each printed edition
of 100 notepads, meant to be
covertly distributed to US representatives
and senators, as a sort of Trojan
horse, injecting transgressive data
straight into the halls of power and
memorializing it in official archives.
SWAMP is now working on a new edition
that takes into account the American
incursion into Afghanistan; with the
disclosure of confidential information
by WikiLeaks, the designers plan to
continue updating the project.
Category: Double Entendre
Tags: Communications / Visualizations / Critical Design / Networks
