I was happy then. Bureau For Open Culture

I was happy then is a book and film that unites the cinematic spaces of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1962 L’eclisse and the present-day reality of Siena, Italy. Through the framework of a tourist guide that focuses on topics of alienation, architecture, economy, love and urbanization, I was happy then is a critical reflection on cities that renounce the contemporary in exchange for a re-presentation of key historical periods. It expands possibilities for dissemination of written and visual content by bringing together complementary qualities of printed matter and film into a singular work.

D 12.50€
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“With our eyes firmly set on the future rather than the past, it’s sometimes surprising to stop and catch our breath for a moment only to realise, ‘Blimey! We’ve passed issue #30 already!’ Meaning: High time for our second collector’s box set mono.archiv #02, gathering mono.kultur issues #16 to 30 in one pretty and screenprinted box, in that strange grey/blue/green hue which tends to lean towards one or the other depending on the time of day. Once again including a sweet little wrap-around (water!), and once again your very last chance to get your hands on beloved issues such as Miranda July or Ai Weiwei, which have been well and truly sold out for what feels like years. Strictly limited to 150 copies, and 150 only.”

mono.archiv #02:
Miranda July
Paweł Althamer
MVRDV
Michael Ballhaus
Dries van Noten
Tilda Swinton
Ai Weiwei
Sissel Tolaas
Cyprien Gaillard
Dave Eggers
Manfred Eicher / ECM
Ryan McGinley
Bless
Chris Taylor / Grizzly Bear
Chris Ware

Size: 21 x 16 x 6 cm
Weight: 1.2830 kg
Price: €95.00

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U-BARN by Öyvind Fahlström, published by OEI editör

OEI editör in collaboration with Amundön presents the first DVD edition of Öyvind Fahlström’s short film U-BARN from 1968. This edition also includes three booklets with an essay on Fahlström’s relation to film (in fact the first more comprehensive essay on this subject), an interview with Stefan Jarl (who was production manager for U-BARN), and transcriptions in Swedish and English of the dialogue track in the film, as well as images and documents related to Fahlström’s film productions in Sweden.

While well-known for his inventive and various visual art (paintings, collages, installations), for his concrete poetry and his “concretist” manifesto “Hätila ragulpr på fåtskliaben” (“HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY”) from 1953, and, at least in some contexts, for his radio art, happenings, and plays, Fahlström’s relation to film belongs to the more unexplored territories of his multifarious work. Even so, film was part of his aesthetic interests from the very beginning, and it was an interest that would linger on during the decades to come. Eventually, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, it would also result in the production of a handful of films, of which the most well-known is perhaps Du gamla, du fria (“Provocation”) from 1972.

U-BARN, though, is Fahlström’s most experimental and complex film. The dialogue is extremely literal and embedded in specific contexts of learning and protest. As a conventional subtitling would be impossible due to Fahlström’s highly complex sound work, which actively resists a normalizing treatment, we have chosen to publish the dialogue track as a transcription in a separate booklet (in Swedish as well as in English).

Languages: Swedish & English

D 17 €

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I Myself Am Only A Receiving Apparatus, Joachim Koester, Maureen Mooren, Frédérique Bergholtz and Kristin Schrader, published by If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam and kestnergesellschaft, Hanover.

I Myself Am Only A Receiving Apparatus, focuses on the performative and the human body in Koester’s work, which is based on intensive archival research and characterized by what he calls “narrative knots”—the multitude of stories, facts and references that make up his notion of history.

The book is part of a series of six monographs that mark the closure of the projects commissioned by If I Can’t Dance within the framework of Edition III – Masquerade, with artists Keren Cytter, Jon Mikel Euba, Olivier Foulon, Joachim Koester, Suchan Kinoshita and Sara Pierce.

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It was the streets that raised me, streets that paid me, streets that made me a product of my environment by Arne Schmitt and Andrzej Steinbach, Spector Books.

Coming from a Hiphop and Punk/Hardcore background, the streets are the place where all our relevant references come together: music, skateboarding, graffiti, political action. The book thus combines self-taken photographs of our surroundings and found footage ranging from movie stills to reproduced magazines and record covers. Both layers are intertwined in a fictional script, formulating an attitude which links Leipzig in 2010 to the New York City of the late 80s, for example. The title „It was the streets that raised me, streets that paid me, streets that made me a product of my environment“ is a reference to what motivates our work: the streets of the city (in this work, Leipzig) as the setting – as well as our favored forms of subculture as the “soundtrack” of our artistic work. That is why it comes in a printed record sleeve; the content is totally pure, just pictures, while all information, similar to liner notes, are found on the sleeve.

D 20€

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Surfing the Black: Yugoslav Black Wave Cinema… and its Transgressive Moments. Jan van Eyck Academie.

The Yugoslav black wave cinema of the sixties and the seventies is one of the grand, though hidden, chapters of cinema history. Talented young authors, working under the sign of individual expression and aesthetic experimentation, pushed and explored the limits of the constraints of a socialist state. Their efforts lead to a new path of visual expression, so outstanding by its social and political engagement, its formal invention and its courage. 



This book is the result of a multi-disciplinary research attempting to cross over politics, philosophy, design, art, architecture, and some speculative thinking. Starting from archival work, interviews, seminars, screenings and a conference, Surfing the Black has found its (temporary) conclusion in a publication consisting of six theoretical essays and three fanzines that open up the black wave film experience to current affairs. This is Yugoslavia, and modern cinema, at its blackest and brightest.

With six theoretical essays (by Boris Buden, Pavle Levi and Owen Hatherly, among others) and fanzines comprising an interview with one of the most important Yugoslav filmmakers, Želimir Žilnik, and a comprehensive glossary of terms that belong to the period and field of Yugoslav culture and politics, this is the first book on the subject in the English-speaking world.

Edition of 300

216 Pages
Text in English

D 22€

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The Little Joe Clubhouse Reader, David Edgar & Sam Ashby, Ditto Press / Little Joe.

The Little Joe Clubhouse is a specially commissioned, crafted environment that draws on ideas of withdrawal, defiant separatism and delicious seclusion, at once a den, a commune and a cinema. An expanded, interactive version of the magazine, The Clubhouse incorporates an eclectic programme of films as part of Little Joe’s ongoing endeavour to (re)map the queer histories of film.

Specially published to accompany The Clubhouse, The Little Joe Clubhouse Reader includes contributions from the artists, filmmakers and writers who selected the unique programme of films.

Contributors include A.K. Burns, Ben Campkin, Stuart Comer, Jon Davies, Ron Gregg, Bruce Hainley, Ed Halter, R Justin Hunt, Shanay Jhaveri, William E Jones, Tom Kalin, Jonathan Kemp, Kevin Killian, Wayne Koestenbaum, James Mackay, Billy Miller, Bradford Nordeen, Jenni Olson, Liz Rosenfeld, Patrick Staff, A.L. Steiner, Edward Thomasson, Scott Treleaven, Mark Turner, Ed Webb-Ingall and Matt Wolf.

Risograph printed
Limited edition

D 6.50 €

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Lodown Magazine #82. July/August/September 2012.

Featuring Mauro Perucchetti, Danny Way, Animal Collective, Manuel Gottsching, Larry Clark, Gregg Segal, Bo Ningen, Florentijn Hofman and much more.

D 6.90 €

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fotograf #19: Film – Magazine of photography and visual culture.

“The theme for fotograf magazine’s 19th issue is the relationship between photography and film. We logically arrived at this choice after gradually addressing topics such as photography and painting, performance, architecture etc. It is logical that photography, which during its history has reflected diverse cultural relationships, has to explore a discipline that directly relates to it, even technologically. It is no accident that many world languages use the same word for camera and movie camera. Not only do both use the same imaging optics, but they also use the same recording medium; earlier film tape, and now increasingly digital chips…” Pavel Baňka, Editorial

D 16 €

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Interview #2

“Ich möchte ein Kleiderbügel sein” – Anna dello Russo.

Die Märzausgabe von INTERVIEW ist da! Die Designerin Miuccia Prada spricht über die neue Leichtigkeit ihrer Mode. Die Schauspielerin Sibel Kekilli über ihren Aufstieg zum HBO-Star und die Gewalt türkischer Männer. Der Regisseur Klaus Lemke blickt zurück auf seine wilden Tage mit Brigitte Bardot und Iris Berben. Der Schauspieler Michael Fassbender erklärt, wie man einen Sexsüchtigen spielt. Der japanische Superstar Takashi Murakami trifft die Streetart-Legende Kaws. Die beiden Depeche-Mode-Gründer Vince Clark und Martin Gore erzählen, wie sie 30 Jahre nach ihrer Trennung gemeinsam ein Techno-Album aufnahmen, ohne sich ein einziges Mal zu treffen. Plus: Anna Dello Russo, Italiens größte Mode-Exzentrikerin, und ihr Leben zwischen Front Row, Internet und privatem Couture-Archiv.

D 6€

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