PUBLIC MARKS from christophe with tags video & installation

Dumb Type's work is as formally complex as it is socially involved. Their most well-known works fall somewhere within the bounds of performance, often accompanied by installations. In many ways, such work fulfills their original declared intent to "develop an art/performance form to fill the gap between static visualart and performance dependent on dialogue." The 'dumb' in Dumb Type thus does not denote a level of intelligence, but rather describes a desire to create without words. "When we first came together," explained Furuhashi in High Performance (Summer 1990), "we just had too many things we wanted to say. We decided not to shout. We try to keep it simple." Although Dumb Type's work spans a much greater range than performance, they are generally perceived as a performance group because touring outside Kyoto forces them to modify works to fit more conventional settings and traditional schemes of venue scheduling. When they work in Kyoto, they are known for spending weeks or, given the opportunity, months just preparing a space for one of their events, often completely restructuring an interior to meet their demands.