Scratch n Sniff consists of dozens of texts taken from the internet. These are hung in a narrow freestanding hallway. The texts were culled from internet message boards in the months leading up to the U.S. led invasion of Iraq. To find these posts, I visited message boards ranging from the mainstream, such as The New York Times, to smaller, more specialized communities. I focused on threads that specifically regarded the coming war.

Individual postings were selected based on a criteria of brevity, anonymity, and vitriol. Many of the posts can be clearly classified as either for or against military action in Iraq. But roughly a third of the postings are abstract, nonspecific demonstrations of hate, anger, frustration, and antisocial rhetoric. Informally, I estimate that one in every twenty posts I saw on these boards was a worthy candidate according to my selection criteria. Each entire post was retyped verbatim; a single post to a single sheet of paper. Every detail was copied including spelling mistakes, punctuation, and emoticons.

When displayed, these posts hang side by side on the interior walls of the hallway. The freestanding hallway is roughly 30" wide. At this width, two viewers cannot pass inside the hallway without making physical contact. The length of the hallway is variable, depending upon the site of exhibition. The version of Scratch n Sniff depicted here is 28' long. The exterior of the hall is left as bare construction. The craftsmanship on this construction is careful and precise. It is important that the hall simultaneously reads as both a space from the inside and an object from the outside.