A Free Hand

The BALTIC, a contemporary arts center in Gateshead, England, has some free downloadable artists projects in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Included among them is a supplement to the Grennan and Sperandio project The Hand and the Word, an animated film made in collaboration with a local, community theater, The Progressive Players.


The Hand and the Word in BALTIC No. 13.

BALTIC No. 13 [6.9 MB] is a mixture of images from the animated film, combined with the complete, original text of the short story that the film is based on. Although Edgar Allan Poe is credited as having invented the detective story genre, "The Hand and the Word," a short story by Irish writer Gerald Griffin, was written in 1827, fourteen years before Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

"The Hand and the Word" (animated, 18 minutes) is available as an NTSC VHS tape in the US through Printed Matter, and all proceeds from the sale go to support that fine organization. "The Hand and the Word" is avaible in the UK as a PAL VHS tape directly from the BALTIC.

Also available are projects by Anish Kapoor, Marijke van Warmerdam and Jenny Holzer.