An antidecuplet with positive strangeness.
Debut album in a limited edition of 157 copies with handmade textile sleeve and screen printed insert, labels.
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Blown Derivatives (2009–2014) was an international collaborative project instigated simultaneously with Blueprints. Collaging papers that blew out of the WTC, it focused on post 9/11 financial crises, attitudes and borders. Artists were invited to participate in ephemeral exhibitions that reflected on politics, economics, and customs of their countries of destination. Pieces were hung outside until they were destroyed or decayed. Couriers and local citizens were also invited into the project, which took place in Antarctica, Iceland, China, Tibet, Iraq, and Pakistan. Blown Derivatives complies the four-year project’s processes, outcomes, and blind spots. With writings and work by: Sanjin Cosabic, Margaret Coughlin, Jonathan Field, Fatin Al Jumaily, Daniel Kaniess, Janet Lobberecht, Abraham Renko, Anna-Marie Shogren, Sean Smuda, Ping Wang.
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Anton Maurer’s Endeavour is a series visualising the impacts of capitalism and colonisation on Aotearoa, New Zealand. Made from 2012–2017 the works challenge viewers to question their perception of this land and the narratives most commonly associated with it.
Edition of 100
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Tracing the the potential of sound, infrasound, and ultrasound to access anomalous zones of transmission between the realms of the living and the dead.
For as long as recording and communications technologies have existed, operators have evoked the potential of sound, infrasound, and ultrasound to access anomalous zones of transmission between the realms of the living and the dead. In Unsound:Undead, contributors from a variety of disciplines chart these undead zones, mapping out a nonlinear timeline populated by sonic events stretching from the 8th century BC (the song of the Sirens), to 2013 (acoustic levitation), with a speculative extension into 2057 (the emergence of holographic and holosonic phenomena).
For the past seven years the AUDINT group has been researching peripheral sonic perception (unsound) and the ways in which frequencies are utilized to modulate our understanding of presence/non-presence, entertainment/torture, and ultimately life/death. Concurrently, themes of hauntology have inflected the musical zeitgeist, resonating with the notion of a general cultural malaise and a reinvestment in traces of lost futures inhabiting the present.
This undead culture has already spawned a Lazarus economy in which Tupac, ODB, and Eazy-E are digitally revivified as laser-lit holograms. The obscure otherworldly dimensions of sound have also been explored in the sonic fictions produced by the likes of Drexciya, Sun Ra, and Underground Resistance, where hauntology is virtually extended: the future appears in the cracks of the present.
The contributions to this volume reveal how the sonic nurtures new dimensions in which the real and the imagined (fictional, hyperstitional, speculative) bleed into one another, where actual sonic events collide with spatiotemporal anomalies and time-travelling entities, and where the unsound serves to summon the undead.
Contributions by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lendl Barcelos, Charlie Blake, Lisa Blanning, Brooker Buckingham, Al Cameron, Erik Davis, Kodwo Eshun, Matthew Fuller, Kristen Gallerneaux, Lee Gamble, Agnès Gayraud, Steve Goodman, Anna Greenspan, Olga Gurionova, S. Ayesha Hameed, Tim Hecker, Julian Henriques, Toby Heys, Eleni Ikoniadou, Amy Ireland, Nicola Masciandaro, Ramona Naddaff, Anthony Nine, The Occulture, Luciana Parisi, Alina Popa, Paul Purgas, Georgina Rochefort, Steven Shaviro, Jonathan Sterne, Jenna Sutela, Eugene Thacker, Dave Tompkins, Shelley Trower, and Souzana Zamfe.
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Constellation (10″)
by Mads Emil Nielsen + Chromacolor
arbitrary presents the first in a series of remix collaborations and releases by Mads Emil Nielsen and Chromacolor, a project from the German sound artist and producer Hanno Leichtmann.
Mads Emil Nielsen’s “Constellation (side A)” was created by combining several granulations and textures based on a single short recording, extracted from improvisations made with the Buchla synthesizer at EMS, Stockholm – combined with randomly looping orchestral samples, edited and produced in his studio in Copenhagen.
After having heard Nielsen’s live performance in Berlin in 2017, Hanno Leichtmann suggested remixing various of his tracks including “Constellation (Remix – side B)”. For this rework, Leichtmann provides an ambient feel by working with various sources, all of which generate sound using vibrating metal plates in different sizes – including a Premier Vibraphone, a Fender Rhodes and a Hohner Guitaret.
Constellation written & produced by Mads Emil Nielsen at EMS Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm and in Copenhagen. Constellation Chromacolor Remix written & produced by Hanno Leichtmann at Static Music, Berlin. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin. Artwork by Karel Martens.
arbitrary12, released 29 April 2022
10” vinyl (transparent, 45 rpm) + DL
Edition of 500, CYK + Pantone print, inside-out sleeve, incl. download code
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Delirious Cartographies (CD + 6 prints)
by Richard Scott
arbitrary presents “Delirious Cartographies” (arbitrary13) by composer, improviser and synthesist Richard Scott. Part of the Danish imprint’s Framework editions, this release includes three pieces on 12” vinyl and six printed drawings – as well as a text by Scott – published as a limited edition portfolio folder.
“These compositions capture aspects of my personal sonic experience of specific times and places. Extending beyond my usual work with analogue synthesizer, these pieces open the doors and windows to the outside world, incorporating field and live recordings made in various locations and situations. Rather than intending any clear sense of narrative, these are molecular dialogues between elements and geographies which do not necessarily share organic points of connection, other than my own incomplete experience and memory of them.”
The final piece “6 Graphic Etudes” (included as digital prints) is intended as a set of visual / sonic sketches, each of which describes a discrete kind of movement or texture. These may have a variety of uses; as musical exercises, as scores, combined as parts of scores, or simply as stand-alone visual propositions / artworks.
The pieces were composed between 2017 and 2021 at Sound Anatomy, Berlin, Spektrum Berlin, EMS Stockholm, NOVARS, University of Manchester, the Electronic Music Studios, University of Huddersfield and in Boliqueime, Portugal.
As well as various microphones, hydrophones and recorders, the instruments used on this recording are mostly analogue and modular synthesisers: Hordijk Modular, Serge Modular, EMS Synthi A, various Eurorack modules, Buchla Thunder midi controller, Oberheim Xpander, Clavia Nord Micro Modular, CataRT and maxMSP, Rob Hordijk Blippoo box. On “Thunder, actually bicycles…” Axel Dörner plays a Holton Firebird trumpet with additional live-sampling via maxMSP and a controller interface developed by Sukandar Kartadinata.
Written & produced by Richard Scott. Drawings by Richard Scott. Graphic design by Mads Emil Nielsen. Mastered & cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin. Thanks to Axel Dörner, Rob Hordijk, Beatriz Ferreyra, Ricardo Climent, David Berezan, Joseph Hyde, Richard Whalley, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Tim Scott, Andy Adkins, Electric Spring Festival, Sines & Squares Festival, Basic Electricity and Sound Anatomy.
arbitrary13, released 2 September 2022
CD version: Digipak incl. 6 prints, 300g paper, text (fold-out, riso)
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Michel Butor’s Description of San Marco (1963) is an unusual book; an unorthodox intermingling of overheard dialogue from the iconic Venetian square in question, thick descriptions of persons and buildings, along with sober historical information. In the original, each genre of information is assigned a distinct typography of its own, hence interacting like voices in a play.
Six decades later, the artist Giovanna Silva stumbled upon an English translation of the French essayist’s queer text in an archive at the New York Public Library. Returning to Venice, she cast her eye to the square and its surrounds, an iconic space at once populated by signs of contemporary life, but also astonishingly unchanged.
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Le Livre Art Publishing is proud to announce the upcoming release of Julio Le Parc, the most comprehensive monograph to date on revered Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc. Following Le Parc’s prolific and visionary body of work, this extensive 492 page volume takes a deeper look into the intellectual and creative process of the artist.
Featuring a critical anthology dating back to 1967, an opening essay by Jean de Loisy, an entire section dedicated to Julio Le Parc’s writings and over 600 color plates, this monograph takes us on a journey through the innovative and ground-breaking work of the artist, thus surveying the pivotal « Before Paris » era before diving into the Surfaces and Color Surfaces periods, and continuing its exploration with Contortions, Light, Installations, Games, Alchemies, and Le Parc’s Virtual Museum.
An in-depth photo-biography of the artist further deepens our understanding of Le Parc’s portrayal, along with an anthology of texts by Mario Benedetti, Alberto Biasi, Jorge Romero Brest, Jean Clay, Gérard Fromanger, Julián Gállego, François Morellet, Pablo Neruda, Jean-Louis Pradel, Paco Rabanne, Pierre Restany, and Julio Le Parc.
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In July 2019 Pablo Allison was detained and imprisoned in an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention centre in the USA where he spent almost 1 month. During his time in prison, he was able to document the lives of migrants in detention through observational sketches made by him, alongside, texts and interviews from other fellow detainees.
The Detainee Handbook aims to offer a small view into the lives of people stuck and locked into the detention/prison system of the United States of America, an industry that has profited vastly from this human tragedy, off the backs of millions of people trying to find better life expectations in the USA.
Signed and stamped.
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Modernism/Murderism, translated by Vasvi Oza, brings together, for the first time in English, a forgotten debate on Modern Art that took place in the pages of the Gujarati-language periodical Kumar between 1959 and 1964. Published across various issues, the debate brings into conversation Pherozeshah Rustomji Mehta, a writer and art connoisseur from Karachi, and Jyoti Bhatt, a young artist who had just begun teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda. While Mehta chose to defend what he believed were the timeless and traditional values of art, Bhatt proposed that Modern Art was no stranger to these values and in fact had much in common with them. Alongside the articles by Mehta and Bhatt, the publication also brings together responses to the debate from various readers who interjected in the ‘Readers Write’ column of the periodical, as well as notes from Kumar‘s editor, Bachubhai Ravat, who informally acted as a mediator. Offering a vantage point from which to view the entry of Modernism and its affiliated discourses into the art practices of the region, this volume proposes itself as a reader to these histories and revisits this crucial moment.
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We are happy to announce of the arrival of the second printing of Radical Friends, edited by Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty, published by Torque Editions, 2022.
Contributors: Ramon Amaro, Calum Bowden, Jaya Klara Brekke, Mitchell F. Chan, Cade Diehm, eeefff, Carina Erdmann, Primavera De Filippi, Charlotte Frost, Max Hampshire, Lucile Olympe Haute, Sara Heitlinger, Lara Houston, Cadence Kinsey, Nick Koppenhagen, Kei Kreutler, Laura Lotti, Jonas Lund, Massimiliano Mollona, MetaObjects, Rhea Myers, Omsk Social Club, Bhavisha Panchia, Legacy Russell, Tina Rivers Ryan, Nathan Schneider, Sam Skinner, Sam Spike, Hito Steyerl, Alex S. Taylor, Cassie Thornton, Suzanne Treister, Stacco Troncoso, Ann Marie Utratel, Samson Young.
First publication to document the use and potential of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations in the arts that use blockchain technology and build on NFT innovations.
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) offer unique tools for translocal peers to encode rules, relations and values into their joint ventures using blockchain technology. This new book, edited by Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty, who have been at the forefront of investigations into the relationship between DAOs and the arts, constitutes over 5 years of research with essays, interviews, exercises and prototypes from leading thinkers, artists and technologists across this emerging field.
Radical Friends is an urgent book for the 21st Century and beyond. It shows us, in the spirit of the legendary poet and artist Etel Adnan, that the technology of the future needs to be about “togetherness, not separation. Love, not suspicion. A common future, not isolation.”
– Hans Ulrich Obrist
How things are run is often more important than what is done. It may not be easy to establish alternative formats and infrastructures, but it’s certainly necessary… This collection shows that it is possible too.
– Sadie Plant
This book is about friendship, despair and hope — a beautiful, must-read for all people who are asking unanswerable questions about life, love and the end of the world.
– Franco “Bifo” Beradi
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