little worlds: an introduction to the murphy table

8/13/2019 Little Worlds: An Introduction to The Murphy Table

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little worlds:

An Introductionto the

Murphy Table

Nicholas


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NicholasCentral St. Martins, May 2012

A classification system for types of

deceit & conceit in storytelling

An Introduction to the Murphy TableLITTLE WORLDS

Privately published in 2012 by Nicholas Jeeves

Nicholas Jeeves 2012

The moral rights of the author have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part

of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise, without first seeking

the written permission of the copyright owners and the publisher. A catalogue

record for this book is available from the Central St. Martins library.


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The Murphy Table is an attempt to broad-

ly identify the spaces between deceit and

conceit in storytelling: between what is

explicit and what is implicit; what is mani-

festly false and what can be understood

to be true; the games people play in the

shadows between these ideals; and the

welcomes they are likely to receive.

Naturally these spaces and shadows

are not so easily defined, and some mate-

rials will run into others and back again,

or dance across the rows of categorisa-

tion. But it is a useful place to begin and

from which to try to conjure some order.

The table begins with the explicit

nature of non-fiction and moves through

six types of murphy before reaching the

implicit nature of fiction. The structure of

the table explains why we could include

the Information Authority Of Japans ani-

mal islands but not Milnes Pooh Corner;

why Lovecrafts Arkham but not Wode-

houses Blandings; why Borges Widow

Ching but not Boswells Dr Johnson.

Fundamentally the table is about

types of storytelling. In general terms

non-fictionis bought, read and parsed

by the reader as an honest attempt at

recording explicit fact (but not truth).

Though it may sometimes flirt with opin-

ion, it is never intended as an attempt to

deceive, and is assembled in such a way as

to wash away unclarified facts and replace

them with clean ones. Whether or not the

work succeeds at this is moot: the attempt

is honest. As readers we understand what

has been undertaken and the transactive

rules of storytelling have been respected.

The A-Type Murphy

An explicit deception or perversion of fact

primarily motivated by the agents desire for

financial or personal gain.

A-Type materials pretend to be fact, but

wear it like a cloak explicitly in order to

deceive. Konrad Kujaus Hitler Diariesare

a case in point. Purporting to be authen-tic, they were in fact entirely fabricated

with the sole purpose of extracting

money from buyers something Kujau

managed with great success, receiving 2.

million Deutschmarks for his efforts.

Kujau was born in 1938 in circum-

stances of extreme poverty. One of five

children, all of whom spent time in vari-

ous orphanages, he quickly drifted into

petty crime. By his early twenties he had

been arrested several times and served

two short jail sentences for theft and,

notably, forging luncheon vouchers.In the early 1970s he began to il-

legally import Nazi memorabilia from

East Germany, forging their provenance

in order to boost their value. Before long

he realised that he could radically increas

his profits by forging the objects them-

selves. He began by painting numerous

Hitler canvases before taking the bold

LITTLE WORLDS:The Murphy Table

Kujaus Hitler Diaries

Konrad Kujau

A Man may, if he pleases,invent a little world of his own,

with its own laws

George Macdonald, A Dish of Orts: Chiefly Papers

on the Imagination, and on Shakespeare, 1893

Information Authority OfJap an s a nim al isl ands

HP Lovecrafts Arkham


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but brilliant step of copying out Hitlers

Mein Kampfby hand and selling it as the

original manuscript. With the sale, pur-

chase or possession of Nazi memorabilia

being illegal under German law, the very

secrecy in which collectors operated kept

him from detection; it was this cloud of

secrecy that would help Kujau sell his

ultimate forgery the Hitler Diaries.

Having made Kujaus acquaintance,

and been convinced of his East German

connections, a young journalist with a

fascination for Nazi Germany named

Gerd Heidemann was looking for a scoop.

Kujau obliged with a careful game of

cat and mouse. Over a period of months

Heidemann was persuaded to pay for the

diaries (all 62 volumes no-one could

accuse Kujau of laziness) at more-or-lesshis own expense. Heidemann in turn sold

them on to the magazine Stern for 9.3

million Deutschmarks.

On their publication in 1983 the

diaries were almost immediately proved

to be fakes. Heidemann and Kujau were

sentenced to four-and-a-half years apiece

for forgery. The diaries became a sensa-

tional backdrop to the even more sensa-

tional story of a Nazi-obsessed journalist

being taken in by a brilliant forger.

In this type of murphy the rules of

storytelling have been baldly abused. It is

a hoax all the purchasing parties have

been explicitly deceived to the financial

benefit of the agent, without opportunity

for recompense.

The B-Type Murphy

An explicit deception or perversion of fact

primarily motivated by the agents psycho-

pathology.

B-Type material is not principally moti-vated by money. Here the psychopathol-

ogy of the agent is taken into account,

allowing greater consideration for mental

disorder. Any money accrued is a by-

product of the deceit, not the purpose.

Facts may be obscured and lies uttered,

but beneath the agents own storytelling

lies a deeper story.

Ferdinand Waldo Demara (1921-

1982), known as The Great Impostor,masqueraded as many people in a number

of professions. In 1942, aged 29, he faked

his suicide, borrowed another name, and

became a religiously-orientated psycholo-

gist. After a brief spell in prison he posed

as, among other things, a civil engineer,

a sheriff s deputy, an assistant prison

warden, a doctor of applied psychology,

a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care

expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist

monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and

a teacher. In his biography he explained

his thoughts:

The first rule is that in any or-

ganization there is always a lot of loose,

unused power lying about which can be

picked up without alienating anyone. The

second rule is, if you want power and

want to expand, never encroach on any-

one elses domain; open up new ones... It

works this way. If you come into a new

situation dont join some other professors

committee and try to make your mark by

moving up in that committee. Youll, one,

have a long haul and two, make an enemyFound your own committee. That way

theres no competition, no past standards

to measure you by. How can anyone tell

you arent running a top outfit? And then

theres no past laws or rules or precedents

to hold you down or limit you. Make your

own rules and interpretations. Nothing

like it. It is rascality, pure rascality. 01

Rascality aside, Demara had an ex-

ceptionally high IQ and a photographic

memory. Many of his employers con-

sidered him a boon, and were extremely

impressed with his work; in some cases

they were disappointed to see him go.

He died on 1982 as a much-loved

Baptist minister. Clearly none of these

roles provided him with any significant

financial reward, instead servicing a pro-

found psychological need. Consequently

we may be more sympathetic as the ele-

ment of deceit is mitigated by recognised

psychological factors.

In the cases of both Kujau and De-

mara, and others similar, the meta-story

becomes an active component. While

the hoaxes themselves may have caused

some injury and disappointment to thepeople present at the time of revelation,

any subsequent storytelling about the

agent becomes more rewarding. It is safe

to say that, in the cases of both, they hurt

a lot of peoples feelings. But those people

are also, at other times, readers, and may

have been amazed at Kujau and Demaras

lives had they not experienced its deleteri-

ous effects at first-hand a theory borne

out by the success of the many subse-

quent books, articles and movies based on

their exploits.

Ferdinand Demara, The G rea t Impos ter(image courtesy Time Inc.)

Crichtons Bestselling Biography of Demara


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Andy Cru z and Ken B arner o f HouseIndustries (image courtesy Marc Eckardt);

and Chale t, th e typeface suppo sEd lydesigned by Ren Albert Chalet

The c-Type Murphy

A deception defined by inference and

implication, informally acknowledged by

the agent.

C-Typematerials begin to move

away from the hoax as a rigid definition,

and bleed into storytelling as we might

ordinarily understand it. The key differ-

ence at this level is the acknowledgement

of the agent. Whereas Kujau and Demara

did everything in their power to conceal

their true selves, C-Type work is designed

from the first instance to allow for ulti-

mate discovery, the moment of which is

to be an intrinsic part of the pleasure of

the material when considered as a whole.

Type foundry House Industries

were already well-known amongst theircustomers for utilising unusual methods

of promoting their newest typefaces.

For Chalet, a modern sans serif, House

created a fictional character named Ren

Albert Chalet, a supposedly overlooked

designer from the 1940s. The published

type specimens contained quotes about

Chalet by some of the worlds leading

type designers. He was even scheduled

to appear at a type conference (he was

unwell on the day and unable to appear).

That most people believed the story, and

with some design magazines even print-

ing articles about the font and its inspi-

ration without ever realizing that Ren

Albert was a fictional character, exposes

the limitations of the knowledge design-

ers have about the history of typography.

It wasnt a complex or particularly

determined hoax. House were already

well-known for their boisterous shenani-

gans, and it was hardly front-page news,

only affecting or interesting to a small

number of professionals. As Andy Cruz

(the real author of Chalet alongside part-

ner Ken Barber) stated on theDesignTaxi

website:

Ken and I noticed sometime during

the late 90s that everyone was rediscov-

ering Swiss design. Ken put all the sans

classics into the House Industries type

blender and Chalet was born. I thought

people would have figured out that Chalet= Housein Swiss, but I guess our story

line about the legendary type-turned-

fashion designer was too deep. 02

House were evidently ready to

admit their deception, and in fact were

allowing for it. In the end it was their mar-

kets neurotic desire for detail that really

enabled it to succeed.

The D-Type Murphy

A conceit defined by inference and implica-

tion, formally acknowledged by the agent.

D-Typematerials allow for a more

formal acknowledgement. When we loo

at Asger Carlsens Wrong, a series of pho-

tographs of people with spindly wooden

contraptions for legs, our suspicions are

on high alert: we live in a technologically

able world ever-ready to deceive us, and

we must be careful to suspect a trick. In

Carlsens own words,

There is a composite of illusion

and reality in the images, and I think they

are even more believable because they

are produced in black and white Even

though [people] know its not real, their

mind is manipulated somehow and they

suddenly think the content couldbe pos-

sible. The work should in fact be consid-ered a relief from reality. 03

The last sentence is important. Wit

D-Type work we are willing participants

in this is-it-or-isnt-it mental to-ing and

fro-ing. Indeed it is the fundamental com

ponent of the images ability to entertain

and is the response required by the artist

in order for the work to fully resonate.

From Asg er carlsen s Wr ong


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Even though they knowits not real, their mind is

manipulated somehow andthey suddenly think thecontent could be possible.The work should in fact

be considered a relieffrom reality.

ASGER CARLSEN on WRONG


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The E-Type Murphy

An acknowledged conceit supported by cred-

ible evidence but defined by implicit artistic

or literary context.

Closer to storytelling are E-Typematerials, which exploit the credibility of

non-fiction while acknowledging that a

conceit is in play. The Argentinian writer

Jorge Luis Borges Universal History of

Iniquity (1935; rev. 1954), is a powerful

example of this ploy.

The book is a collection of short

stories which are semi-fictionalised ac-

counts of criminals. The sources are listed

at the end of the book, but Borges makes

many alterations in the retelling arbi-

trary or otherwise particularly to datesand names, so the accounts cannot be

relied upon as historical. Using this blend

of fiction and non-fiction, Borges exploits

our implicit understanding of what fiction

is to bring us closer to the characters.

Consequently the study is a much more

intimate experience for the reader, allow-

ing for ideas of truth to emerge from fact.

The quality and nature of the evi-

dence is key. The element of doubt must

be there, and remain there after the fact.

When a detailed, highly realistic setting is

invaded by something strange and excit-

ing to believe, we are torn between whatwe know to be likely, what we would

knowingly like to be true, and what the

maker may or may not know to be true.

That Carlsen openly expresses this idea

takes him firmly out of the arena of

hoaxes, and we move ever closer to our

traditional understanding of storytelling.

The F-Type Murphy

An acknowledged conceit supported by

incredible evidence but defined by implicit

artistic or literary context.

F-Typematerials move closer still

to the greater truths that pure fiction canexpress. Employing patently implausible

content, there is no real danger of decep

tion. Instead F-Types utilise the explicit

craftsmanship found in the real world in

order to make an imaginary world more

plausible.

Donald Evans (19451977) was

known for creating hand-painted postage

stamps of fictional countries. During a

six-year period from 19711977 he painte

stamps issued by forty-two countries tha

he conjured from his imagination. Evanstraced each stamp design in pencil, then

completed it with watercolour and pen

and ink. To simulate stamp perforations,

he punched out rows of full-stops on an

old typewriter. He enjoyed considerable

success while he was alive, and had solo

gallery shows in Amsterdam, London,

New York, Paris and Washington, DC.

(He died, tragically, in a house fire in

Amsterdam aged just thirty-three.)

In an interview for Paris Review in

1975, Evans revealed that The stamps ar

a kind of diary or journal... Its vicarious

travelling for me to a made-up world tha

I like better than the one that Im in. No

catastrophes occur. There are no gener-

als or battles or warplanes on my stamps

The countries are innocent, peaceful,

composed. In What Am I Doing Here?,

Bruce Chatwin concluded:

By common consent, the art of th

drop-out generation is a mess and the

art of Donald Evans is the antithesis of

mess. Nor is it niggling. Nor is it preciou

Yet I cant think of another artist whoexpressed more succinctly and beauti-

fully the best aspirations of those years:

the flight from war and the machine; the

asceticism; the nomadic restlessness; the

yearning for sensual cloud-cuckoo-lands;

the retreat from public into private obses

sions, from the big and noisy to the small

and still. 04

Donald Evans, Republica de Banana, 1960

Jorge L uis B ORges


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Its vicarious travellingfor me to a made-up world

that I like better than the onethat Im in. No catastrophesoccur. There are no generalsor battles or warplanes on

my stamps. The countries areinnocent, peaceful, composed.

Donald Evans


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Flashman already being a well-established

fictional character from Thomas Hughes

1957 novel Tom Browns School Days.

Again the Murphy Table enables us

to better sympathise with the misunder-standing: Fraser goes to the lengths of

adding marginal notes to his own work,

occasionally correcting Flashmans recol-

lections and offering more viable dates

and explanations. As such, even though

Frasers books are also shelved under fic-

tion, they have more in common with a

D-Type Murphy.

It is always a fun game to imagine

such books, photographs or papers being

found in ten thousand years time. With-

out explanation, what would our descend-

ants make of Kujaus diaries, Carlsens im-

ages, or Evans stamps? They may reassess

Hitlers motives; they may wonder at the

ingenuity effected to help our fellow man;

they may imagine new Atlantean myths,

speculate on tidal disasters.

Whether this matters or not is a

matter of debate, especially if we con-

sider, for example, the endurance of holy

texts. For mankind a truth will always

resonate more deeply, and more widely,

than a fact, giving stories the power to

endure long after records have decayed.All we can hope to do is to understand an

intention, to get to the heart of the mat-

ter at hand and to learn to appreciate the

messages received.

Evans art resonates twice: In the

beauty of the stamps themselves, and

in the imagination that spawned them.

Evans augmented the artworks with

postcards which he sent to friends, care-

fully postmarked with a rubber stamp he

carved from a pencil eraser. He also devel-

oped the histories, geographies, customs,

languages, and flora and fauna of his

countries. That he seized on the singularidea of stamps as a way of directly trans-

porting us to these fantastic places may be

his most profound achievement.

The table begins with the explicit

nature of non-fiction, and so ends with

the implicit nature of fiction. Paradoxi-

cally, fiction has more in common with

non-fiction than any of the other murphy

types, as once again there is no practical

intention to deceive, even playfully. Just

as with non-fiction, fiction is processed bythe reader with a tacit understanding of

the nature of the contents. We under-

stand that, while there is no fact in the

book, there may be truth. Again, whether

or not the work succeeds at this is moot:

the attempt is honest. We understand

what has been attempted and the trans-

active rules of storytelling have been

respected.

The Murphy Table allows us to

more readily understand what a sto-

ryteller is doing, be they writer, visual

artist, performer or pretender. While Dan

Browns The Da Vinci Code, for example,

is shelved under fiction in bookshops, it

really has more in common with E-Type

murphies, as the author notes a list of

spurious facts at the beginning of the

book to give the fictional narrative some

real-world heft.

George MacDonald Fraser performs

a similar trick with hisFlashmannovels,

though with a more elegant touch. The

conceit of the books is held in their

introductions, in which Fraser spins ayarn about having discovered Flashmans

memoirs at auction, and how he himself

is merely the editor and presenter of these

papers. Despite the legal clarification on

the books imprint pages citing Fraser

as the author of the works, a number

of historical enthusiasts enthusiastically

took the memoirs to be authentic, despite

Frase rs The Flashman Pap ers, Vo l. 1


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WilhelmVoigt

The Amusing Captainof Kpenick

b.1849, d.1922An A-Type murphy

Friedrich Wilhelm Voigtwas bornin Tislit, Prussia in 1849. He took topetty crime from an early age, begin-ning a career of thieving at fourteen

years-old. Never a skilled criminal, bythe time he was 57 he had been sen-tenced to a total of 25 years for crimesranging from theft to forgery.

Finally released from prison in1906, he drifted from town to townuntil his sister invited him to live withher in Rixdorf. Having learned shoe-making from his father, he brieflyfound work at a shoe factory untillocal police discovered his record andexpelled him as an undesirable. Hemade to leave for Hamburg, but infact remained in the area as an unreg-istered citizen.

Voigt, not to be defeated, hatcheda plan. Having purchased all theparts of a German Captains uniformfrom various second-hand shops and

bazaars, he dressed himself up andmade his way to the local army bar-

racks, stopping four grenadiers anda sergeant on his way and orderingthem to accompany him. Once at the

barracks he commandeered six moresoldiers from the shooting range, andmarched the lot to the station. Fromhere he took the train to Kpenick,marching them on arrival to the cityhall. Here he ordered everyone to stopwhat they were doing, and instructedhis men to cover all exits. The localpolice were told to maintain order and

to prevent calls from the post office toBerlin for one hour. He then turnedto the treasurer and the mayor, and ar-rested them on suspicion of fraud.

Confiscating 4002 marks and 37pfennigs (the exact figure is knowndue to the fact that he signed a re-ceipt) he told the grenadiers to escortthe arrested men to Berlin for interro-gation, and told the remaining guardsto stay in place for thirty minutes. Hethen left for the train

station where he changed back intohis civilian clothes, and disappeared.Over the following days, reac-

tions were polarised. The press werefascinated, sensing a terrific story.The public were delighted at this taleof old man Voigt, who dressed up asa captain and robbed city hall. Thearmy were outraged, and began theirown investigation.

It didnt take long for the au-thorities to catch up with him. Hewas arrested on 26th October andsentenced to four years in prison forforgery, impersonating an officer, andwrongful imprisonment. It was nowthe publics turn to be outraged, and

the noise soon reached the ears of theKaiser, Wilhelm II.The Kaiser, unexpectedly, was

reported to have been amused bythe incident, taking the view thatVoigt was more amiable scoundrelthan wicked criminal. Perhaps mostimportantly, he was impressed thatsimply appearing to be a Germancaptain inspired such obedience inothers. For years he had been instillinginto his people a reverence for theomnipotence of militarism. Voigtscaper proved, extraordinarily, that thescheme had succeeded.

Voigt wasted no time in capitalis-ing on his fame. His effigy was in thewax museum in Unter den Lindenonly four days after his release. Heeven arrived to sign photographsas The Captain of Kpenick butwas soon ejected by unamused localauthorities. He appeared in a playthat depicted his exploits, and toured

in Dresden, Vienna and Budapest invariety shows and amusement parks.In 1909 he published his book, HowI Became the Captain of Kpenick.

Yet by 1910 his celebrity wasalready dwindling. He moved toLuxembourg, having received a lifepension from a sympathetic Berlindowager, where he bought a houseand retired. But post-World War Iinflation ruined him, and he foundhimself returned to penury. He died

in 1922.Nevertheless his legend lived on. Anumber of successful books, plays andtelevision dramas were produced inGermany, one of which was adaptedinto English by John Mortimer, andperformed by the National Theatrecompany at the Old Vic with PaulScofield as Voigt. A bronze statue ofVoigt, in full Captains dress, standsoutside the City Hall in Kpenick, ap-parently looking for a carriage.

Most importantly he is nowviewed by many in Germany as avictim of official prejudice, caught inthe Kafka-esque situation of not beingable to get work without a residentpermit, and not being able to get aresident permit without work. Hisstory is taught to this day in German

schools as an example of tenacious re-sistance against an unjust bureaucracy.

Voigts arrest sheet

Poster for the 1956 West German film

Voigts statue, Kpenick City Hall

AddendAThree more murphies of notable interest


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The First Formosanin Europe

b. c.1679, d. 1763A B-Type murphy

Amy Pornio, dan chin Ornio vicy, Gnay-jorhe sai Lory, Eyfodere sai Bagalin, jorhesai domion apo chin Ornio, kay chin Badieyen, Amy khatsada nadakchion toye antnadayi, kay Radonaye ant amy Sochin,apo ant radonern amy Sochiakhin, bagneant kau chin malaboski, ali abinaye anttuen Broskacy, kens sai vie Bagalin, kay

Fary, kay Barhaniaan chinania sendabey.Amien.(Psalmanazars translation of TheLords Prayer into Formosan, one ofthe earliest examples of an inventedlanguage.)

Details of George Psalmanazarsorigins are scarce. Indeed, we donteven know his real name. He wasprobably born in 1679 somewherenear Languedoc, southern France.

According to his autobiography hewas educated first in a Franciscanschool and then in a Jesuit seminary.He was a precocious boy with anextraordinary talent for languages and

a powerful desire to see more of theworld. Only a lack of money hinderedhis progress. This he remedied by pre-tending to be an Irish pilgrim, havingstolen a cloak and staff from a localchurch, and making his way aroundFrance. Unfortunately, many of thepeople he met were familiar with theIrish and he was soon exposed as afraud.

Not to be defeated, he set hissights further afield and drew on

missionary tales from the far east,pretending to be a Japanese convertand exhibiting a number of inven-tively bizarre customs for verisi-militude, including sleeping uprightand eating raw meat. Developing theidea, he next declared himself a nativeof Formosa (now Taiwan), a landabout which very little was known,and which was therefore a safercover. He expanded his repertoire of

behaviours, claiming to venerate the

sun and the moon and speaking aninvented language.In 1702 he met the Scottish priest

William Innes. Innes converted himto Christianity, christened him GeorgePsalmanazar, and took him back toEngland to show him off to the clergy.On reaching London, word soonspread among the chattering classes,who took this exotic visitor with hisstrange ways and quaint English totheir bosom.

Psalmanazar wasted no time incementing his place. Within two yearshe had published his first book, AnHistorical and Geographical Descrip-tion of Formosa. He described its

customs, economy, geography andhistory all either invented or inspiredby travel reports from other far-flungplaces. The book was a huge success,enjoying a reprint within the year andwith French and German editionsfollowing soon after. Readers thrilledto tales of naked warriors, snake sup-pers, child sacrifice and undergroundcities. He even gave a lecture at theRoyal Society.

But Psalmanazars real mas-terstroke was to draw on his greattalent for languages, setting down theFormosan language and alphabet.Not only was it one of the earliestexamples of an invented language, butit was so convincing that it was still

being referenced more than fifty yearslater, despite Psalmanazar having

been exposed by then.

Psalmanazars star would riseno higher. He developed an opiumaddiction and wasted his money onill-advised business ventures. Criticallgenuine reports from Formosa werenow beginning to appear. In 1706he confessed to his fraud, and after

the briefest of outrages, the publicsenthusiasm dwindled.Nursing his wounds, it was in

language he regained solace. Thelocal clergy, perhaps impressed byhis natural facilities, were generousenough to grant him the money tostudy theological Hebrew. Intriguingly, he also struck up a close friendshipwith Samuel Palmer, and co-authorePalmers A General History of Print-ing (1732). He then turned to writingan authentic study of Formosa,criticising his former exploits. Hisfaith in now God re-awakened, hisstudies culminated in an anonymouspublished collection of theologicalessays in 1753. Living on an admirer

annual pension of 30, his last yearswere spent writing his confessionalautobiography. He died in 1763, the

book of his extraordinary life pub-lished posthumously.

Formosan Tabernacle drawn byPsalmanazar

Psalmanazars Formosan alphabet

GeorgePsalmanazar


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In the cartoon world of Tom andJerry, cat and mouse do daily battlearmed with sk illets, flypaper, tacksand inconveniently placed roller-skates. In essence it is guerilla warfare

never-ending, conducted with thematerials to hand, and with only theoccasional armistice in the face of a

third-party combatant.In Jeff de Boers world, the rela-

tionship between the species is posi-tively medieval. Cats have evil-lookinghelmets ridged with deadly spikes toprotect sensitive ears and noses. Micehave full-body armour, the nose-to-tailplatelets terminating in scorpion-liketails. Whether de Boers battle petsare at war with each other or withus is left untold. Whichever, theyveevidently been engaged in bloodycombat across centuries and nations,from the days of the Roman empireto feudal Japan and chivalric Europe.

Jeff de Boer was born in Calgary,Canada, in 1963, the son of a profes-

sional tinsmith. Interested in artfrom a young age, it was only duringhis last years of high school that hestarted to make serious enquiries intometalwork, a developing passion thatculminated in the building of his firstsuit of armour.

In 1984 he enrolled at the AlbertaCollege of Art and Design to study

jewellery design. Combining his newskills in jewellery with his knowledgeof armour-making, he produced the

worlds first and only suit of armourfor a mouse. As in nature, more micefollowed and were soon pursued bycats.

All of the pieces in this particularcollection are master classes in themost precise and delicate forms ofmetalwork. They are made as if foran ancient emperor, hand-tooled tomillimetric precision with beautifullycomposed narrative reliefs and mysticwarrior symbolism. In form theyare equally breathtaking. Every ana-tomical detail appears measured forcomfort, movement and protection,impressing the vitalness of function.Had any of the great warrior kings

of history Genghis Khan, Atilla theHun, Alexander the Great beenshown de Boers Kwan Helmet for aRottweiler, one feels certain that hewould have inspired the commissionof a canine horde. The piece is a trueextension of the warrior spirit theromance of Parsifal, the wild menaceof the Vikings and the gory lustreof gladiatorial Rome. What de Boermight do with Hannibals elephantswe can only jealously imagine.

De Boers first solo show, openingafter eight years of private makingin his parents garage, was called

Articulation. Featuring some 140works, it opened at the Muttart Gal-lery in Calgary and went on to touraround western Canada for the nexttwo years. The work was collectedinto four discrete areas: armour forcats and mice; armour for executives;exoforms; and space objects. DeBoers Alien Duelling Pistols from

Space Objects depart from thehand-carved historical into a colder,futuristic world of machined parts,meticulously assembled into fantasticdeadly-looking devices and hypoder-mic projectiles. But the stylistic cold-ness of the pieces is mitigated withhis signature attention to form. Mingthe Merciless styling blends seamlesslywith practical ergonomics howeverotherworldly they look, these are stillhuman weapons. The cat and mouse

armour references a classically under-stood past, but the pistols reference apopularly imagined future.

Corporate Ties from ExecutiveArmour describe another kind ofcombat entirely the boardroom

battles of capitalism. That executivesand middle-managers require a battletie is a humorous conceit that playson the nobility of warrior symbolismwhilst simultaneously poking fun attheir self-image. That he has done sowhile giving equal attention to bothindividual identity and the necessarymovements of the human form istestament to his dedication to hiscraft. From Ancient Rome via PlanetMongo to the cut and thrust of capi-talist politics, de Boer exercises the

craft of battle like no other modernartist.

Samurai Siamese

Black Knight Mouse Corporate Tie

Alien Duelling Pistols

Artistb. 1963An F-Type murphy

JEFFDE BOER


15/16

Harris, Robert

Selling Hitler: The Story of the

Hitler Diaries

Faber and Faber 1987

01 Crichton, Robert

The Great Impostor

Random House 1959, pp. 102103

02 Design Taxidesigntaxi.com

(Cited content no longer available)

03 Its Nice That #6

An Interview With Asger Carlsen

Its Nice That 2011, p.60

Borges, Jorge Luis

A Universal History of Iniquity

Penguin Classics 2006

04

Chatwin, BruceWhat Am I Doing Here?

Viking 1989, p.265

EISENHART, WILLIE

The World of Donald Evans

Abbeville Press, 1980

BROWN, DAN

The Da Vinci Code

Bantam Books, 2003

MacDonald Fraser , george

The Flashman Papers (12 books)

HarperCollins, 2005

Weissbrodt, Klaus

Koepenickia

www.koepenickia.de

Lynch, Jack

Orientalism as Performance Art: The

Strange Case of George Psalmanazar

(Lecture delivered 29.01.99 at the CUNY

Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Literature)

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/

~jlynch/Papers/psalm.htm

Psalmanazar, George

Memoirs of ____, Commonly Knownby the Name of George Psalmanazar;

a Reputed Native of Formosa

London, 1764

De Boer, Jeff

www.jeffdeboer.com

Bibliography& SOURCES


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A Man may,

if he pleases,invent a little

world of hisown, with itsown laws

little worlds: an introduction to the murphy table

Documents