“Permanent Vacation” by Cory Arcangel
Although it falls into that gray area of ‘conceptual’ art, frequently maligned alongside modernism as "it’s not Art if I could do it," this setup - two computers locked in an endless loop of dueling ‘out of office’ auto-responders - is immediately evocative. Beyond the mundane, it speaks of practical infinity, loop logic, meaningless marked time, and a kind of electronic ennui. And yet, by their absence the purported recipients have achieved a kind of escape from the soulless, flickering-fluorescent barren that is life constrained by the Outlook inbox.
I wonder if there exists a category of open source concept art - examples like this one that you can re-create yourself from the original blueprint. The future of home fabrication, e.g. FabLab, even further dilutes the notion of ‘original.’
If ProgressQuest is akin to a line stretching to infinity, "Permanent Vacation" is more of an Ouroboros.