THE PROBAND, 2006

Graphite on hand-made paper

31.5 x 23.2 inches

reproduction by Marco Wittkowski

"Like a wolf, the subject circles the desk, the victim, the virgin sheet of paper in his sights. [...]

If the search for the "ideal reader" remains unsuccessful, an unexpected reader joins us shortly after the writing process begins. He was already present unnoticed during the development of the first thesis – as an inner doubt, as a second self, as a mental counterpart. [...] The imaginary reader gradually unfolds the full force of his destructive power, works and criticizes no longer only on the level of sentences, no, he wants to destroy the existing structure, doubts the fundamental viability of the approach, disavows the subject."

From: Tales from 1001 Doctorates, "In Hostile Depths" by Achim Menges, 2006, Klinkhardt Verlag