Friday, June 8, 2018

Low Tech High Tech Mail


In 1996 the U.S. Postal Service issued a Computer Technology stamp to celebrate the 50thAnniversary of ENIAC (the first electronic computer for general use). The U.S. Postal Service had Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedellcreate the first postage stamp designed entirely using computers. In that same year, email began to out-pace pieces of snail mail sent in the U.S. 
Recently I was given a sheet of those postage stamps and immediately started working on a piece of mail art to put them to good use.  Low tech, hand-carved, rubber stamps resulted in a series of 40 postcards.  It might seem like a contradiction using low tech postcards to commemorate a high tech postage stamp, but mail artists are not afraid to communicate via email and share the mail they receive online. It is not low tech vs. high tech, but rather low tech and high tech.

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