Tony Oursler / Vox Vernacular

American artist Tony Oursler (b. 1957) gathers inspiration from the way people’s desires are extended through interaction with mass media, specifically cinema, television, and the internet, and creates fascinating video installations that combine words with projections of grotesque and sublime images. Tony Oursler / Vox Vernacular compiles fifty transcripts of Oursler’s videos, offering an entirely new way to apprehend the nuances of his work. The selection of pieces featured in this publication date from between 1977 and 2013, spanning nearly the entirety of Oursler’s practice. Adding valuable context are scholarly essays explaining Oursler’s creative process and full-color illustrations of his videos. Among other revelations, these transcripts show that Oursler is not merely a video artist, but a writer as well. The vernacular language that Oursler employs is written to be spoken by “electronic entities” and carries a sort of musical cadence that makes his text surprisingly lyrical. This comprehensive anthology uncovers the poetry in Oursler’s work and captures the unique nature of his artistic voice.