Collaborative writing project by Ericka Beckman and Mike Kelley
New Observations Magazine, 1984

Excerpt:
“The subdivision has a clear identity with a Model Home sitting at the head. Roads to the subdivision enter and exit past the Model Home. He is on the look-out for expanding his original form. Subdivide, subdivide, spread yourself far and wide. The outer frontier is no barrier to the community…”

PDF available here

by Ericka Beckman
Effects Magazine for New Art Theory, 1984

Excerpt:
“There was this amusement park that I used to go to when I was a kid. One day it stormed like you wouldn’t believe. We were having this grade school picnic or something. I got lost. It was starting to rain and I thought I better get back to the bus quick and I didn’t know where anyone was. I couldn’t locate a face I knew in the crowd so I rode this ferris wheel just to take a look around and all I could see was this huge storm coming in off the sea…”

PDF available here

by Ericka Beckman
Hallwalls Publications, 1988

Excerpt:
“I don’t want any beans,” said Jack. “I’m sick of beans.”

“You come in here right now and eat some of these beans, and then you take a bag a’ beans down to Farmer Brown’s store and trade it in for some Gummy Balls and a pack a’ Lucky Smokes for your poor old mother.”

At this Jack ran screaming from the house, holding his head in his hands. His mother called out after him, “Run! Run, boy!”

PDF available here

by Ericka Beckman
Effects Magazine for New Art Theory, 1983

Excerpt:
“The viewer has come to enter into a relationship with the film, giving the film the same attention that events in his life receive, in hopes of getting something in return. In a bad film, the director protects the film, making it a relationship of ‘want’ on the part of the audience, and ‘not getting… In a good painting the image says to the viewer, ‘for you to have me, you must meet me here. And once you have me, you will want me forever.’ From this point on the viewer and the artist commence a relationship of purchasing. Relief is physical and material…”

PDF available here