Seeing with Eyes Closed – Association of Neuroesthetics

Seeing with Eyes Closed brings together contributions from the participants of the symposium organized by the Association of Neuroesthetics, Berlin, at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, on 2nd June 2011.

The symposium takes its title from an interdisciplinary project by artist Ivana Franke and neuroscientist Ida Momennejad, conceived through the support of Alexander Abbushi and the AoN. The project concerns the visual experience of flowing images induced by stroboscopic light behind closed eyes. Being aware that the seen images have no foundation in external reality, one experiences them as hallucinatory. This ‘conscious quasi-hallucinating’ challenges our sense of the real in its alternation and its permeability with the imaginary. Each person’s experience differs from that of others, and each ascribes different dimensions to the perceived space in constant transformation. Communicating the content of this ephemeral flux of unpredictable percepts stretches the limits of acquiring subjective report to extremes, and challenges the scientific aspiration to precisely measure the timing of conscious phenomena.
Edited by Elena Agudio and Ivana Franke.
Graphic Design by Sibilla Ferrara / Makingthinkshappen

Published by the Association of Neuroesthetics, Berlin.
89 pages.

D 15 €

Buy

The Renaming Machine / The Book

ed. by Suzana Milevska, various writers
book, hardcover, 420 pp, ill., colour
Ljubljana, Slovenia: P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute. 2010

The project The Renaming Machine looks at the complex entanglements involved in the political and cultural processes of renaming. Its main concept reflects the crucial need to question the way these processes have influenced the construction and destabilization of the memory of national, cultural andpersonal identities in the former Yugoslavia and South-Eastern Europe over the past two decades. Alongside the philosophical and theoretical implications of the “mystic writing pad” of historic renaming, the project examines clandestine ideological patterns of the “desiring renaming machine” at work behind the dominant and visible social machines. Particularly with the break-up of Yugoslavia, the renaming “apparatus” erased and overwrote most traces from the Tito era, including the Yugoslav leader’s own name, which had been attached to many places in the former country.
Participating writers and artists in the book are (among others):
Sanja Iveković, Tanja Ostojić/DavidRych, Tadej Pogačar, Dan Perjovschi, Lia Perjovschi, Irwin, Alexander Vaindorf, Sasha Huber, Kalle Hamm, Mladen Stilinović, Hristina Ivanoska, Zdenko Bužek, Barbara Borčić, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , James E. Faulconer, Suzana Milevska, Aldo Milohnić, Zhivka Valiavicharska.Valiavicharska.

D 45€

Buy

Available for Distribution

Mousse #26

Jimmie Durham has an interesting theory about money: it’s a virus that’s using its biology, architecture and art to replace human nature with its own…

Nick Relph is tangled in the weave of a tartan. Kirsty Bell met up with him to discover his sources of inspiration, which range from his own closet to Ellsworth Kelly’s paintings, by way of DIY groups on the web.

In the last twenty-six years, Moyra Davey has photographed almost no one. On the other hand, she has very clear ideas about the role played by literature in her universe of objects and dust. Gigiotto Del Vecchio explored it with the artist.

Ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago, who would have thought that talking about art schools would become cool? Dieter Roelstraete has an astute theory about this epoch-making “educational turn”.

A two-ton asteroid is reason enough to set Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg to work on a project that incorporates scientific knowledge, socio-political history, and the inexplicable magnetism of an alien object. Johan Lundh talked about it with the artistic duo for PART OF THE PROCESS.

Laure Prouvost has a passion for arranging meetings in unusual places, and Francesco Pedraglio had to follow her through muddy tunnels for an interview about her work. Which lies at the border between surrealism and plausibility.
The Chto Delat? collective is inspired by Lenin and carries on the revolution through musicals. But can it keep political symbols from being co-opted by aesthetics? That’s one of the questions raised by Jakob Schillinger.
Běla Kolářová lived in the shadow of her husband, artist and poet Jiří Kolář, and yet her sophisticated, conceptual work, made up of personal objects, deserves a special place in art history. Alice Motard talks about it.

ARTIST PROJECT: Leonor Antunes.

Plus…

For LOST AND FOUND, Jens Hoffmann traces the career of Marta Minujin, a pioneer of happenings and media art, a global artist ante litteram.

Barbara Casavecchia got the rare chance to take a look at his endless archive of useless images. As a result, through SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET, we too get to explore the terraced house in Chalk Farm, north of London, that belongs to John Stezaker.

D 8€

Buy: orders@mottodistribution.com

n+1 research branch small book series: What was the Hipster? a sociological investigation

“Who was the turn-of-the-century hipster? Who is free enough of the hipster taint to write its history without contempt or nostalgia? A panel of writers invited the public to join an investigation into the rise and fall of the contemporary hipster. In addition to the panel transcript, the book includes essays and responses from critics.”

D 10€

Available for distribution
Buy: orders@mottodistribution.com

The World in Your Hand. On the Everyday Global Culture of the Mobile Phone – Olaf Arndt, Günter Burkart, Kenichi Fujimoto, Dominic Johnson, Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, Sadie Plant, Paul Feigelfeld & Jan Wenzel, Miya Yoshida.

Over the past decades, almost no other technological innovation has been able to find such widespread dissemination so easily, or so rapidly, nor take such all-embracing possession of our daily lives, as the portable telephone. As camera, Walkman, organizer, navigating device, and post box for private and business messages, the mobile phone does not only represent a connection to the world for the affluent parts of the planet the cell phone conquers public urban spaces as well commercial ones and dissolves previous borders between them. Its use causes fundamental shifts in cultural codes and intervenes in social textures.

With essays from the fields of cultural and media studies, philosophy, sociology and art: Olaf Arndt, Günter Burkart, Kenichi Fujimoto, Dominic Johnson, Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, Sadie Plant, Paul Feigelfeld & Jan Wenzel, Miya Yoshida.

Text in German and English

Published by Spector Books

D 22€

Buy: orders@mottodistribution.com
Available for distribution

May #5

Préface / Preface
Learning to Breathe Protest
Apprendre à souffler la révolte

Le Soi, le Groupe et le Mac : deux faces d’une institution
The Self, the Group and the Pimp : Two Sides of an Institution
salong

La Possibilité d’un monde
The Possibility of a World
Alexandre Costanzo

From the A to the K
Karl Holmqvist

« Regardez-la un instant. Puis, tournez la page. »
“ Look at it for a moment. Then turn the page. ”
Camille Pageard

“Please cremate my body. Loathing.”
« Prière de m’incinérer. Dégoût.»
Robert McKenzie

Le Complot de l’ornement
Gallien Déjean

Sphinx
Kim West

Moyra Davey, “Speaker Receiver”
Elisabeth Lebovici

D 10 €

Buy
Available for Distribution

Anti-Catalogue # 01

Published by The Model on the occassion of Dorm, an exhibition curated by Séamus Kealy ( 1 May to 4 July 2010)
Editor: Amish Morrell
Design: The Future

D 10€

Buy

Available for distribution.

N + 1: Recherche et expérimentation en design graphique, numérique et sonore dans les écoles supérieures d’art et design

Serving as an extension, rather than catalogue, of the International Design Biennial 2008, Saint-Etienne. Featuring contributions from Linda Hillfling, Paul Thek, Michael Rock and Pierre di Sciullo, amongst others.

Published by Les éditions de la Cité

D 10€
Buy : orders@mottodistribution.com

Motto is pleased to stock Metropolis M!

Metropolis M N.4 August- September

Featuring Monica Bonvicini on Power and Sexuality by Johannes Wendland, The Amsterdam Connection In Conversation with Jan Dibbets and Ger van Elk by Nathalie Zonnenberg, The Future of the Museum Part 1: Clémentine Deliss on the Museum der Weltkulturen by Marion Ritter and Artists on Doing Their Doctoral Research by Ilse van Rijn.

D 10€
Buy : orders@mottodistribution.com