Variablemedia's eighth project was Working Lunch by artists John Hanson and Richard Paul. 06|07|03

– 31|10|03

In 1998 Dudley Stationery was one of the UK's leading distributors of office supplies - by 2002 it was no longer in operation. John Hanson and Richard Paul returned to the 1998 printed catalogue to try and discover if there are any clues to the company's demise hidden in the images. Richard Paul was one of the photographers who worked on this catalogue - perhaps he knew more than he was letting on.

'Working Lunch' presented the web site's visitor with an opportunity to click through multiple possible sequences of still images and quicktime movies. Regular updates to the site changed the location of the starting point through these image sequences. The addition and subtraction of images and movies created further possible routes and alternative interpretations.

Hanson and Paul give a knowing twist to the seemingly simple codes of printed catalogue imagery. They put forward an alternate reading; suggesting the presence of covert narratives that were originally concealed in the apparently mundane (and apparently misjudged), series of printed images... For more information please read the press release.