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In Mark Webb's recent installation titled HYPEerTEXT the words 'HERE & NOW' confronted the viewer as he/she entered the room. The text, carved out of polystyrene and painted an acidic yellow hue was mounted across almost the entire length of the wall. Although it was not immediately apparent, the large letters (100cm high) protruded from the wall considerably (approximately 40cm). To the right of this yellow strip of text, on a shorter wall, was mounted another cliched phrase 'sooner or LATER' painted in a lavender hue. On the opposite short wall facing 'sooner or LATER' was 'dead+ buried', in a pale red matt paint. Mounted on the long wall, through which one entered the space, were two sets of carved black polystyrene brackets on either side of the doorway. The wall behind each phrase was painted in a rectangular field the same colour as the text.
Webb's text was painted with flatly applied 'home decor' colours, and perhaps indicated a Pop sensibility. It suggested that art is a convention, but also that this interpretation of art is prone to submergence in a painted field or Painting field –an interpretation indicated literally by the illusionistic disappearance of the text, from some viewing angles, into the colour field behind. The protruding letters, however, were considerably larger than those which one might usually encounter intimately, a fact which encouraged viewers to move to the sides of the text, thus revealing its abjectness and exposing the 'disappearing' mechanism as an illusion. This might have suggested a minimalist or phenomenological notion of meaning in which the art object is considered in relation to the body's moving perspective, exposing at the same time formalist painting's reliance