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Letter from the Editor

July.01.2006

Since starting Visual Codec, I have been giving a great deal of thought to putting out a yearbook, something that would showcase some of our strongest regional artwork in a tangible format.

I first considered curating the book internally (via a team of Visual Codec contributors and/or a poll of Visual Codec readers), but came to the conclusion that an infusion of persons currently more or less "external" to Visual Codec would render the freshest results.

So, after deciding the "who" of the curation, I was left with the "how," an even harder mental maneuver given that I wanted to make the selection process as accessible as possible to both established and emerging talents.

It was in this line of thought that I conceived of One Shot 2006, a book that will showcase 100 works of art selected by a panel of sharp regional eyes through a blind voting process. After all, god loves a good oxymoron.

And justice is blind, right? So in an effort to get as close to fair play as possible, "blind" will mean a couple of things to the One Shot process.

Firstly, while it is up for vote, the snapshot of the artwork will have no context aside from its medium and title. No artist name, no city, no six to twelve slides from the same artist. One title, one description, one shot, "Next."

Secondly, each judge will draw his or her conclusions without input from any of the other judges, each one acting as a digitally and geographically sequestered jury of one. No newspapers, no television, no early results reporting, no email, no phone calls — in other words, "Send in room service, please."

This approach might sound rather rigorous, but it sets my sensibilities tingling to wonder what in the heck will happen. In all probability, I'm guessing anything that can, will.

For example, I halfway expect some enterprising upstarts to send in sly self-portraits and/or somehow work their names into the titles of their artwork. I also expect that many (or most) judges will be able to easily identify the work of artists they're readily familiar with, context or no context.

Happily, it's not up to me, but up to each individual judge what happens in those kinds of situations.

Once the judging starts I'll get to just sit back and try not to pee my pants waiting for what will no doubt be curiously arresting results.

Starting Jul.14, the game is on...!!

Send us your best,

m.

Founding Editor
Visual Codec
editor@visualcodec.com