Steve, Harvey and Matt, (2018)

734-page book
Print-on-demand
Perfect bound
8.5 in. x 11 in.
Unlimited edition

This project—a broadcast, a book, and a download—restores access to 1,964 climate change-related URLs that were removed from EPA.gov on April 28, 2017. The URLs point to web pages, documents, and other files that were purged by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the direction of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration. Some of the assets had been accessible on the web since 1997. The April 28 purge redirected hundreds of climate change URLs to one of three new pages: “This page is being updated,” “Complying with President Trump’s Executive Order on Energy Independence,” or the scrubbed “Energy Resources for State, Local, and Tribal Governments.” The Steve, Harvey and Matt, website broadcasts the entire collection of climate change URLs ten times each day—a randomized mix of restored access and empty gestures. The 734-page printed book contains all of the EPA emails and spreadsheets that detail the purge, obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests.

I worked on Steve, Harvey and Matt, during a residency at Oolite Arts in Miami Beach, Florida in January 2018, and the project launched at the Walker Art Center in March 2018, where I delivered a Design Insights lecture and introduced the work (watch here). The book is also featured at Library of Artistic Print on Demand, curated by Annette Gilbert and Andreas Bülhoff.

Steve, Harvey and Matt,
Visit the website
Download the book (60MB PDF)
Purchase the book at Lulu