Hyperphilately - Simon Poulter
Hyperphilately invites internet users and visitors to Sheffield's Lovebytes Digital Arts Festival to collect up to 35 original stamps in cyberspace. Artist Simon Poulter will issue a new stamp for each day of the festival which runs from 16th March to 25th April.
The stamps explore a range of issues, ideas and concepts including the return of the first dog in space, Laika, 1000 years of commemoration and National Day of Living Memory. The stamps can be freely collected by visiting the hypertribes web site at http://www.hypertribes.org.uk/hyperphilately
A central feature of the work will be an enormous banner, the largest digital stamp ever made, which will hang from Sheffield City Centre Post Office. The banner contains a huge fork and celebrates 701 years of cutlery manufacture in Sheffield.
Hyperphilately investigates the erosion of nation state identity and originality implicit in electronic media, while at the same time inviting the viewer to question the arbitrary themed demarcation of time and events.