Slopfest #12 · 1938 · Vienna

Copy of a Copy of a Copy

The first photocopy read '10-22-38 Astoria'. Ours read 'Slopfest' and got worse each time.

Six hand-copied programmes in a row, top-down, the headline drifting from SLOPFEST #12 on the first to 'STOPFEST #12' on the last

Venue: Naschmarkt, behind a paper stall
Attendance: 58
Fun fact: 6 generations of copies, 1 new word

What happened

Lacking a copier, the committee hired six clerks to copy the program by hand, each working only from the previous clerk's version. By the sixth copy the headline read 'Stopfest', and 23 guests went home. The degraded program is now considered the founding document of the festival's visual identity, and its font has never been identified.

Elsewhere in 1938

Chester Carlson makes the first xerographic copy in his Queens lab, reproducing the words '10-22-38 Astoria'.

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