projects > Selected reviews, books, interviews, & catalogue essays

When Molly Springfield was in graduate school working toward a master of fine arts degree, she often found herself in the library making photocopies. She was studying the history of Conceptual Art and conducting research about the intersection of art and language. This interest stemmed from the drawings she was making at the time of notes she kept from when she was in high school. These were passed covertly between friends during class. Springfield rendered the folded, crumpled notes in high detail using graphite on paper, showing every crease and shadow, and only fragments of intelligible text.

It was this close consideration of the physical reality of words on a page that led Springfield to see her accumulation of photocopies in a new light. After graduating, she set to work on a new series of drawings that took as their subject the photocopies themselves—not just the words they communicated and the meanings behind them, but the intricacy of the photocopied image, including frayed covers, fanned page edges, the shadowy region in the middle of a spread where words curve and disappear, and the dark abyss beyond the book. Each reproduction is 1:1, meaning that if the photocopy was eight and half by eleven inches, the drawing was, too, with no visual effects appearing in the drawing that were not created first by the photocopier. Springfield was making copies of copies.

Although her practice has evolved, Springfield's fascination with text as image prevails, and the photocopier remains a central player in her process. She has become well acquainted with the machine, able to finagle its settings to yield delightfully complex distortions. And yet, she still never really knows what kind of an image is going to emerge. The photocopier provides parameters that Springfield embraces, enlarging only 400 percent at a time, allowing only so much darkening, and accepting only certain sizes of paper. Details get lost in the process of reproduction, and irregularities are amplified. She enjoys the indeterminacy and speed of the photocopying process, which contrasts considerably with the laborious, slow, and often painful process of transcribing the image to paper.

In an age when much of the information we consume is transmitted through screens and devices, Springfield's work exposes what is lost when we make the leap from analog to digital, and the particularity of the technologies that make it possible. How can we better understand these processes of reproduction that are often difficult or impossible to see? How can we use the technologies of yesterday to comprehend those of today?