Karol Szymkowiak - WHO HAS HEARD ABOUT MR HEARD?

Who has heard about Mr. Heard?

I found a wallet in the pocket of a leather coat in a second hand shop with clothes from Great Britain. The wallet turned out not to be empty. There were fold-up, crammed and written all over notebook pages inside. The content was not easy to read as the print was really small. There were receipts, tickets from sporting events, watch battery replacement manual, purchase invoice for the Canon T-90 camera issued on August the 10th, 1989 for Mr. Heard.

This is how I found out about him. When I got back home, I reflexively googled his name and his place of residence according to the invoice for camera and I expected prompt answer to my question: Who is (was) Mr. Heard? But the answer didn't come. It is probably because the notes and the receipts come from 1980s, and at that time the Internet we have today was at the beginning of its development. However, it does not mean that I did not find anything. Google maps allowed me to find and see places, which were visited by Mr. Heard. What is more, I could watch bicycle race and auto racing where – among spectators – was Mr. Heard.

Thanks to Google I was able to travel in time online. The Internet became a source of information about the events that had happened before the Internet came to being. I play the role of Mr. Heard – a photographer that records sports competition and the surroundings of the places he visits. At the same time, I look for everything that remained after him, I peek him, I look through his windows and I find people that could have met him.

Pictures in the book consist of screenshots from Google Street View, freeze-frames from YouTube, notebook pages scans from the wallet and the leather coat photos. They present my way of perceiving what the mystery character might have seen, but filtered by the Internet and the time flow. Those two factors upgraded the pictures I have found to the Internet troves – the artefacts that lead the reader through the investigation I have conducted.

BOOK
Karol Szymkowiak
Who Has Heard About Mr. Heard?
1st edition, 2018

format: 178x97mm
94 pages
44 illustrations
language: Polish, English
binding: soft
digital printing
circulation: 10 copies

book design: Karol Szymkowiak, Agnieszka Zdziabek
illustration editing: Karol Szymkowiak, Agnieszka Zdziabek
texts: Karol Szymkowiak
publisher: Karol Szymkowiak