SHIFT-CNTRL Gallery: Negativland

The audio artists Negativland have established a web site to focus on an unsuspected fourth primary color, Squant, reportedly discovered several years ago by Dr. Wohan Squant of the Optical Institute and Shade Company of Mindinaw. Many people don’t believe Squant exists, often treating Negativland’s presentation as a form of conceptual art. The problem is that with few Squant producers in the world, practically no distribution outside of Asia and a scarcity of appropriate technology in the West, Squant generally gets left out of Western art and criticism. It most often appears as a default gray in U.S. media, whether in computers or in four-color journals or magazines. Not much can be done immediately about the continuing lack of Squant pigment for printing presses, but at the Squant web site, http://www.negativland.com/squant/, Negativland’s customer service strives to help people download and use the SquantView plug-in, which is designed to enable Squant to be seen on Macintosh and PC computer displays. For some users, the plug-in seems to work fine; but others have experienced continuing problems with equipment incompatibility. Negativland believes that these erratic hardware/software problems will correct themselves with time. Hopefully, each new exposure of Squant to a broader group of potential users will spur those in charge of color to finally take down the color barriers, lift all hue trade restrictions, and let Squant flow freely through the world’s color markets. Over 96% of the Earth’s people have still never seen Squant, and many of those are artists. Isn’t this a little ridiculous for 2001?

Negativland
2608 62nd Avenue NW
Olympia, WA 98502
U.S.A.
E-mail: markh@olywa.net
Web: http://www.negativland.com/squant