Londonion’ was commissioned by Film & Video Umbrella for ‘MerzBank’, a repository of artists’ online works that draw inspiration from Kurt Schwitters. Guided by his innovations in the visual arts, in spoken word, in typography and poetry, the project anticipates how Schwitters’ mercurial spirit might have flourished in the online world, while highlighting the debt that new forms of digital collage owe to Schwitters’ formative example.
Newly commissioned works by Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson, Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard and Alec Finlay reflect the many different facets of Schwitters’ aesthetic while exploring today’s ever-expanding outlets for combining and communicating images, texts and sounds. MerzBank launched in April 2003 with a series of special Schwitters’ themed events at Tate Britain.