The letter requests that each recipient responds with their journey’s findings by filling in an enclosed “form” and mailing it back to the artist.

Carbon copies of the individual swatch artworks were mailed. The 108 original hand-typed artwork swatches are preserved each on its own sheet of business letter paper. Scanned images of these art swatches fit together to form a 30″x30″ assembly that represents wave action. This assembly is used to visualize the global social influence of the 108 recipients and group them symbolically into a single image.

The Communication – “Gentlemen of Chance” message recipients each receive a hand-typed, formal, business letter on vintage stationery with a surrealist array of stamps and graphics that differentiate the letter from the rest of the postal mail. Each “gentleman of chance” is invited on a hero’s journey meditation with specific instructions. They are invited to use an enclosed type-art as a graphic key to their experience.

The Communication:

Working as an individual and making tenuous contact with public figures through the mail creates both possibility and doubt. During the construction and production of the hand-typed letters, questions of value, purpose, relevance, and outcomes inevitably surface for me. It is useful to note that the letters themselves may not be read by their recipients, but that it is the act of authoring, drafting, and hand-typing that is the purpose of the work. The use of vintage stamps that each contain an image of patriarchal power is intended to call out and notice the social placement of the recipients themselves.

The Gift:

The enclosed letter mailart sent with each communication is produced through a slow and highly repetitive process. Each impression carries multiple meanings and representation for the artist, for the work itself and perhaps for the recipient. The tedious and repetitive letter writing and mail art production evokes an altered state of presence. Each mailart swatch was created using a carbon copy. Copies were mailed to the recipients while the original was retained by the artist as evidence of the exploration. Individual squares each consist of 1,390  periods, overtypes or spaced placeholders. Each square represents the average individual 2015 net worth calculated from the full list of 108 individuals. Each impression, overtype or placeholder is equal to US$1Million. Images with more impressions are mailed to recipients with higher net worth. Ongoing calculations page here. All 108 originals together form one 30-by-30-inch, black-and-white, type-art, pointillist image made up of 150,900 total impressions or spaces. (Eight of the tiles are removed to leave a square image.) These impressions as actions taken in the creation of the work represent the total net worth (2015) of the 108 individuals combined (US$1.509 Trillion) with each point, overtype or space representing US$1Million. *** It is interesting to note that US$1.5 Trillion is roughly equal to the GDP for 2014 of Australia. *** It is interesting to note that at the U.S. federal minimum wage it would take a worker 66 years and 4 months working full time to earn US$1M, the amount represented by a single point on Gentlemen of Chance.

The Reply

“Form 108 – Notice” conceptually asks what the original U.S. 1040 tax form might look like if it were re-envisioned to accommodate non-governmental, non-financial reporting. The original U.S. 1040 form represents the first time a national income tax was put into place permanently in the U.S. Its purpose was to tax income on both individuals and corporations. The tax assumes an earner’s responsibility to society in its mandate. “Form 108 – Notice” represents the first time a business form is used to ask unanswerable questions. It seeks to understand what other non-tangible responsibilities are present in the amassing of wealth. Only the recipients of the forms will be able to answer these questions. To date, none of Form 108 have been returned.

Response

As of the end of 2021 three responses were received from the offices of George Soros, Richard Branson, and David Geffen. None were returned on the supplied envelope or form.

Sources and Tools:

• http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
• http://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm
• http://tejji.com/convert/number-conversion.aspx