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Lloyd Dunn 
 Public Works
Photostatic
 mail
Lloyd Dunn (b. 1957) is an artist (for lack of a better word) who produces work for a variety of media, including film, video, audio, print, and the web. At the University of Iowa he studied Linguistics (BA 1981), before going on to graduate school in Film, Photography and Intermedia (MFA 1987). While in graduate school, Dunn created an extensive body of work using the photocopier as his primary tool.
Dunn’s first major project was PhotoStatic Magazine, begun in Iowa City in 1983. Although initiated to showcase photocopy and generative art, it quickly took root in the ‘mail art’ and ‘zine’ sub-cultures that peaked in the late 80s. PhotoStatic began as a largely visual publication, but evolved continually, eventually coming to contain a mixture of graphics and essays, humor, and zine criticism.
Spin-offs from the Photostatic project included a series of audio cassette compilations, a video tape compilation, and a series of artist's books by individual artists, edited and produced by Dunn. Photostatic also appeared under a number of print "alter-egos", which include Retrofuturism, YAWN, The Bulletin of the Copyright Violation Squad, The Expatriot, PSRF, and currently, The Photostatic Magazine Retrograde Archive.
In 1986, Dunn began composing music and audio art with Ralph Johnson
and John Heck. From this activity they formed the group The Tape-beatles. The idea behind the collaboration was to create music using recording technology itself as the sole musical instrument. They took their inspiration from musique concrète, fluxus, and some of the studio experiments of the 60s carried out by the Beatles and certain other more 'experimental' rock groups. The do-it-yourself esthetic of punk and the zine movement was also a decisive influence.
Dunn currently lives in Prague, where he continues to perform with John Heck as the Tape-beatles. He also does free lance production for print, video, and the web. Currently, he is working on a CSS-based design for the new weblog at detritus.net, where he will also be posting content.
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