Digital Folklore

Edited by Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied
Designed by Manuel Buerger
Published by Merz & Solitude

Technical innovations shape only a small part of computer and network culture. It doesn’t matter much who invented the microprocessor, the mouse, TCP/IP or the World Wide Web; nor does it matter what ideas were behind these inventions. What matters is who uses them. Only when users start to express themselves with these technical innovations do they truly become relevant to culture at large.
Users’ endeavors, like glittering star backgrounds, photos of cute kittens and rainbow gradients, are mostly derided as kitsch or in the most extreme cases, postulated as the end of culture itself. In fact this evolving vernacular, created by users for users, is the most important, beautiful and misunderstood language of new media.
As the first book of its kind, this reader contains essays and projects investigating many different facets of Digital Folklore: online amateur culture, DIY electronics, dirtstyle, typo-nihilism, memes, teapots, penis enlargement …

D 34.50€

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Dark and Stormy, Onomatopee 53.1.
Contributors: Bart de Baets, Remco Van Bladel, Richard Brautigan, Italo Calvino, Friedrich Jürgenson, Ilja Karilampi, Jens Lekman, Freek Lomme, Jack London, Wong Kar-wai, Henry Miller, Charles M. Schulz, Pruane2forever, Tom Schiller and Rustan Söderling.

D 3€
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Istanbul. Ludovic Bollo
May 2002
Edition of 500
Tirages: Jean-Pascal Leaux
Maquette et conception graphique: Floriant Chevillard
D 28€

Newwork Magazine # 5
The fifth issue of newwork magazine finds a range of artists and designers exploring the concept of grace, infusing their very different work with a similar attunement to the ineffable, the elegant, the sublime.
A survey of books from st. Gallen showcases three generations of book designers who have stayed true to their city’s heritage as the heart of swiss book design while breaking new ground (and old rules) with playful use of asymmetry and unconventional typographic design. Grandfather to this vibrant multigenerational movement is Rudolf Hosteler, editor of “typografische monatsblätter”, who mentored jost hochuli, master typographer, graphic designer, and book designer. Hochuli, in turn, served as teacher to the founding members of the award-winning swiss design team, tgg hafen senn stieger and to gaston isoz, an accomplished book designer working out of berlin. While each of these designers takes a unique aesthetic approach, they are united by a fascination with graceful creative solutions.
Joining the book designers in this issue is jürgen bergbauer, a german-born fine artist / photographer who obsessively photographs rocks, extracts them from their natural contexts, and places them into flat off-white spaces, producing studies that temper analytical beauty with radiant calm. Taka mayumi, japanese-born, paris-based fashion photographer, produces a breathtaking fashion story of genderless beauty. And veteran photographer lillian bassman breathes new life into the “mad men”-era glamour she helped define with her iconic imagery and maverick darkroom techniques. As bassman’s interview with newwork reveals, her own inimitable grace flows from equal parts vision, spunk and timeless sex appeal.

32″x21.5″
104 pages
Softcover
English

D 15 €

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Printed Matter / Drukwerk, Karel Martens with Jaap van Triest and Robin Kinross

Revised and extended, third edition, 50 years of work.
Published by Hyphen Press

The work of Karel Martens occupies an intriguing place in the present European art-and-design landscape. Martens can be placed in the tradition of Dutch modernism – in the line of figures such as Piet Zwart, H.N. Werkman, Willem Sandberg. Yet he maintains some distance from the main developments of our time: from both the practices of routinized modernism and of the facile reactions against this. His work is both personal and experimental. At the same time, it is publicly answerable. Over the now 50 years of his practice, Martens has been prolific as a designer of books. He has also made contributions in a wide range of design commissions, including stamps, coins, signs on buildings. Intimately connected with this design work has been his practice as an artist. This started with geometric and kinetic constructions, and was later developed in work with the very material of paper; more recently he has been making relief prints from found industrial artefacts. This book looks for new ways to show and discuss the work of a designer and artist, and is offered in the same spirit of experiment and dialogue that characterizes the work it presents.

Out Of Print

Land Route – Kasper Andreasen & Louis Lüthi

Land Route is a companium volume to a permanent installation made by Kasper Andreasen for the museum of Literature in the Hague.

D 15€

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Speaking of which… – Kasper Andreasen & Lous Lüthi

Compiled with Louis Lüthi. A cabinet of curiosities. Liège, BE: Le Comptoir.

D 13€

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Part One
This collection of 101 Part ones was printed in a numbered edition of 101, each containing an original Part one.

Collection: Robin Waart
Book design: Jonas Wandeler

(sold out)

Birds At Airports, Philippe Desarzens

is a self published project achieved during bird’s autumn migration period in 2003.
It includes a booklet / poster. Airports today are interesting places to observe the human-bird
interaction. A multitude of decoys, signs or sounds are used to scare off birds.
This work is also a reflection on our way to communicate.

D 15€

Komfort mag #5
D 11.50€
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Available for distribution.

BOM DIA, BOA TARDE, BOA NOITE, Manuel Raeder Agenda 2011

Contributors: Manuel Raeder, Carla Zaccagnini, Mariana Castillo Deball, Daniel Steegmann, Eran Schaerf, Bojan Sarcevic, Rodolfo Samperio, Amanda Haas, Amalia Pica, Adriana Lara, Manuel Goller.

D 22€
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