Hyper-Palimpsest brings together two existing bodies of work: Brüggemann’s 45 Text Pieces (1997-2019) are presented in juxtaposition with his Headlines and Last Line in the Movies (2019). In the space, the audio installation Text Pieces Read by Iggy Pop (2019) plays for fifteen minutes of every hour. These elements are overlaid in a process the artist calls ‘obliteration’. Brüggemann is interested in this process of layering as a correlative to the unfettered accumulation of information in the digital age. In much the same way that an oversaturation of all the colours tends to black, Hyper-Palimpsest plays with the idea that an excess of inputs leads to an erasure of content: and so it posits the aesthetic of our control-copy control-paste, 24-hour news society as an ever-obliterating palimpsest of digital white noise.

The installation is a space for contemplation that challenges the audience to engage, to walk right up to the work, so that they might begin to see past the initial impression of black to the mark making and the layers of work. Within this space of visual obliteration, Iggy Pop’s reading of Brüggemann’s largely indiscernible Text Pieces interplays with that which we can and cannot see. His iconic voice inflects Brüggemann’s 45 original writings with an array of intonations and textures that add a sculptural dimension to the sound. Iggy Pop’s voice emphasises the mutability of language as it effaces the authorial voice of the artist.