Alighiero Boetti inserted an "e" between his first and last name dividing his subject into two autonomous identities: Alighiero and ( e) Boetti. His Twins, 1968 (a photomontage of the artist alongside a life-size copy of himself) signified an ironic gesture of authorial nominalism, a doubling of signatures, a destabilization of authorship and style. One becomes two; a twinning leads to an imaginary collaboration. In a world that operates within a system of regulated information (demographics, boundaries, history, language, etc.), this nameplay provides an insightful commentary on authenticity in an age of endless reproduction.
Existing in various formats including imaginary manifestos (prints, books, and album covers), and fictitious video biographies (dual screen projections/installation), Lam creates a hypothetical collision, an aphasiac interpolation of the biographies of John Lennon and Vladimir Lenin, where the latter will narrate the life of the former, and vice versa. Using biographical data, archival footage, and their writings as readymade, the series simulates a dialectical exchange (October Revolution meets the Beatles and the Anti-war Movement), in an effort to shuffle history and mobilize quotations. The project deals with the possibility of reinvigorating a leftist political imaginary and the promise of a collective utopia.