100 Notizen - 100 Gedanken (100 Notes – 100 Thoughts): No. 015, Paul Ryan

As a prelude to the 2012 exhibition, dOCUMENTA (13) and Hatje Cantz are publishing a series of notebooks, 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts, that is comprised of facsimiles of existing notebooks, commissioned essays, collaborations, and conversations. The series is edited by Bettina Funcke.

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In No. 015 of the series, Paul Ryan presents 'Two Is Not a Number: A Conversation with Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabriwith,' in which dOCUMENTA (13) Agents Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, New York–based video artist Paul Ryan talks about the theoretical and biographical background to his work, about formative experiences while being an assistant to Marshall McLuhan, and about his role within the video group Raindance and their magazine Radical Software—and about how all these influences shaped his desire to connect his artistic practice with revolutionary social action. Ryan’s idea of Threeing lies at the center. Based on Charles Sanders Peirce’s phenomenological categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness, Threeing is a voluntary practice of relating, in which three people take turns playing three roles. The conversation is complemented by a detailed appendix with illustrated texts on Threeing and on Ryan’s concept of the Relational Circuit.