Pincis has a long-standing interest in concrete poetry. Each artwork develops from a combination of chance discovery and long periods of reflection, he focuses on the idea of process, and the way he processes material, whilst endeavouring to transform a bureaucratic process like photocopying and typing into a geological one.  He creates series of self-imposed rules which he follows obsessively, these rules delimit the decisions and actions he makes whilst making each piece the repetitive actions allow for a transcendental like state.  Formal decisions much like an algorithm are handed over to the less than perfect technology he chooses to use. Ironically this old technology adds an element of chance as the materials and equipment begin to break down.

Working with typewriters found in Deptford market, close by to his studio, he has created a series of works using typed linguistic material arranged on the page in a visual form which reveals a tangible relationship between process and geometry. Pincis is heavily influenced by literature and uses the format of a typical paperback book for much of his work. There is a certain intimacy in this scale, viewers unconsciously recognise the format inviting us to move closer as if reading a book. For ‘To Fill A Void’ (2015) Pincis systematically typed the letter ‘O’ until the centre of the ‘O’ became full of ink and therefore indistinguishable, “drawing the typewriters possibilities to a natural full stop.” (Vandenbrouck, 2017, p.6) This solitary act took 2,000,000 ‘O’s to create something richer than its parts. Other typewriter works explore the repetition of letters creating graphical shapes, ‘a-Z 2’ forms a triangle as the letters A to Z are typed in vertical lines. The typewriter guides the way the work is made, paper moves in the carriage, type drops and the paper starts to bend as the ink builds up on it.

Pincis has created similar rules for his photocopier works while rejecting the functionality of the medium. “Every Page of the Readers Digest” is every single page of the digest exhaustively photocopied onto the same sheet of paper. “The result is an opaque mass of gleaming black where no image is discernible.” (Vandenbrouck, 2017, p.6) The overlaid layers of toner create depth and texture becoming thick almost like geological crust, or sediment found in a rock, or the growth rings found in a tree. ‘Library Map’ consists of a series of small panels, the map itself has been photocopied once for each year of its existence. (In excess of 120 years.) The gleaming black surfaces verge on the sublime, on closer inspection they reveal inconsistencies in the surface, contours and text are only legible due to the build-up of the ink on the surface of the paper. Pincis for a long time has wanted to grasp and investigate the idea of the sublime via the mundane - in this case the act of photocopying.

Pincis’ chosen materials and tools relate directly to the idea of the office so for Kserology the gallery has been transformed into a quasi-office space. Green municipal carpet tiles run through the centre of the gallery which hint at the flooring in the Goldsmiths University Library where Pincis has created much of his work as well as being ubiquitous office flooring.  We have borrowed items from Pincis’ studio his prized Canon photocopier (a replica of the one in Goldsmiths Library) and a selection of typewriters, an entire antique encyclopaedia set, maps and ephemera used in the making of his work have been amassed into a stack. The different materials have been piled neatly into a cube having its own shape, but the nature of each component has been kept.  Comparable work is hung in clusters, and the larger map works hang in isolation whilst a new piece of work lays on the carpet tiles.

Kasper Pincis’ work is the result of an isolated performative process that propel us across the surface of the page. His practice appears abstract even though it’s conceived from the practices of literature, academic theory, and bureaucracy, taking the materials and machines to the brink of breaking down. The “typed art is about the controlled striking of keys responding to a page’s rigidity and spatial qualities. The copy art is about the controlled movement of an object onto the page, capturing the flow of that unique gesture in a fleeting moment of time.” (Vandenbrouck, 2017, p.6)

Bibliography - Griffin, T. (2018). Writings on Wade Guyton. Zurich: Jrp Ringier ; Dijon. Vandenbrouck, M. and Wills, R. (2017). Kasper Pincis. 1st ed. London: dalla Rosa; London.