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Miss Read Offstage 2018

for Miss Read Stage 2018 click here 

Saturday, May 5, 2018

12.30 Marlene Obermayer Katalog als Ausstellung / Douglas Huebler November 1968  (presentation in German)

Im Frühling 1966 gab der erst 25-jährige Galerist Seth Siegelaub seine Galerie in New York City auf. Mit der Begründung: „You don’t need walls to show ideas” verstand und realisierte er Printmedien als geeignetes Mittel zur Kommunikation und Verbreitung von konzeptueller Kunst und zugleich als neutralste Möglichkeit, um diese zu präsentieren. Siegelaub begriff den Katalog als signifikante Informationsquelle über eine Ausstellung und setzte seine Idee, eine Schau in Buchform zu machen, letztendlich zum ersten Mal bei Douglas Hueblers „Katalog- als-Ausstellung“ November 1968 um.

Huebler und Siegelaub nahmen bei der Gestaltung der Publikation bewusst davon Abstand, sich in einem Vorwort oder Essay zu erklären und so bildet das Statement zu Beginn das Herzstück des Katalogs. Die Werkanalyse unterstreicht die Signifikanz des Statements in Verbindung mit den 12 darin dokumentierten Arbeiten, und so wird im Zuge der Masterarbeit die Behauptung aufgestellt, dass diese im Katalog als Text-Bild-Konglomerate untrennbar voneinander abhängen. Huebler gelang es, linguistische Konnotationen und Sprache mit Objekten in Verbindung zu setzen und dadurch seine konzeptuellen Skulpturen vielschichtig zu machen.

13.30 Oliver Corino The Secret Pocket, the fifth instalment of the serialised memoirs. Architectural Fathers by Canary Wharf (OCR)

Architectural Fathers by Canary Wharf is an episodic series of illustrated memoirs written by Canary Wharf, who is the daughter of various men involved in the construction and evolution of the London financial district Canary Wharf. Each episode occurs at a different point in time (past or future) and concerns a different father. In the books, Canary constructs idiosyncratic historical and political portraits of the men responsible for Canary Wharf that offer valuable insight into important moments for British business and politics, as well as poignant accounts of a woman being patronised and alienated from those she thought of as family.

Oliver Corino will be reading from The Secret Pocket, which concerns the 5th father in the series, Paul Reichmann. The memoir is set around the 16 September 1992 on a cold and mysterious surfing holiday on England’s south coast where Canary narrates the biggest private bankruptcy ever, Olympia & York, through her experience as a teenage girl and her newfound interest in fashion.

14.00 Amelia Santana, Marcela Rodríguez Vida de Plutón (‘Life of Pluto’)

Vida de Plutón (‘Life of Pluto’) involves an introspective journey towards the author’s own mysteries, a search for answers and a beginning for the formulation of new questions. From the onset of this journey, one is carried through a universe of emotional sensations inspired by memory, doubt, and fear of life. Just like the planet, which remained  forgotten, obliterated and at a remote distance until a space mission reached it and discovered its heart, Vida de Plutón (‘Life of Pluto’) represents the author’s return – a return opening up as a possibility for every reader – towards her own history, as well as an acknowledgment of  her heart and the discovery of a conviction not to hide it anymore.

Pequeño Pato Salvaje – Laboratorio Editorial (‘Little Wild Duck – Publishing Laboratory’)  is a project of editorial creation focussing on personal, individual approaches to process-based work. On the grounds of the content generated, this Laboratory seeks to awaken sensitivity, dialogue, reflection and empathy through publications, libraries, podcasts, and open creative laboratories.

14.30 Printroom NETbooks

NETbooks is a series of publications initiated by X Marks the Bökship and PrintRoom which takes self-publishing as a starting point for other “self-reliance” projects. These projects are made by a small group of artists and designers – often after a collaborative exercise or workshop – and distributed via like-minded small publishers and publishing platforms using Risograph printing facilities. Each NETbook dips into a particular field of knowledge and presents a selection of findings with an emphasis on process, sharing and collective experience.

15.00 Anarchive, with Valentin Venesson & Christophe Leclercq Fujiko Nakaya FOG Anarchive 5 / éditions Anarchive, Paris, 2012 & Masaki Fujihata Anarchive 6  / éditions Anarchive, Paris, 2016

Fujiko Nakaya FOG anarchive 5 
This first comprehensive monograph presents more than fifty of Nakaya’s ‘Fog Works’, created for public spaces all over the world, as well as her video works and paintings. The artist’s texts and drawings, archive items, videos and previously unpublished essays by French and Japanese authors (Michel Butor, Yuji Morioka, Anne-Marie Duguet, Kenjiro Okazaki, Pierre-Damien Huyghe, Bill Viola, Marion Halligan), document this exceptional art approach, which constantly reinvents the relations between art, science and technology. The DVD-Rom and the DVD Video include some rare videos by the artist, as well as a substantial filmed documentation about her Fog Sculptures, from the famous Pepsi Pavilion in 1970 until 2011.

Masaki FUJIHATA anarchive 6
A new type of book : a ring binder, the very archetype of an archive file, incorporates 16 booklets and images to be read with an Augmented Reality app. The physicality of the book and digital data are connected, allowing the reader to access videos or 3D simulations.  iOS 9 is required (iPad, iPhone and iPod)

In this first monograph on and by Masaki FUJIHATA, the entire artist’s work can be explored, from the first animation films and computer graphics in the 1980s, until the interactive installations and experiments in 2015 with laser, GPS, Internet or Virtual Reality. The Artist’s writings and original essays by French and Japanese critics (Jean-Louis Boissier, Anne-Marie Duguet, Elie During, Masaki Fujihata, Kei’ichi Irie, Hidetaka Ishida, Shigeru Matsui, Virginie Pringuet, Akira Tatehata) discuss the radical issues raised by this experimental take on art book publishing within Europe.

15:30 Zoe Darsee, Nat Marcus ON ONE: A Dispatch on Distance, from the Editors of TABLOID

Blur is central to the ethos of TABLOID Press: its publications attempt to render the worlds on- and off-page indistinct; its poetry workshops center less on critique than mediation; its infrastructure defined more by a network of friends and collaborators than a publishing roster. At the Miss Read 2018 Offstage, the press’ co-founders and editors Zoe Darsee and Nat Marcus will read selections from a collaborative text “ON ONE: A Dispatch on Distance, from the Editors of TABLOID” – a follow-up to 2017’s “Dispatch on Fear” PDF, released online by Cixous72. Who exactly wrote what, or where, and how to divide mere correspondence from measured verse? All of it becomes awash. The moodboard here includes: Iowa City, Iowa, USA; Fernando Pessoa; Sade B-sides; iambic astrology verses; and the hilled district of Smíchov, Prague, Czech Republic. It’s springtime.

16.00 Jenne Grabowski, Otto Grokenberger Stranger Than Paradise (JB. Institute)

“Stranger In Polaroid” is showing the behind-the-scenes of Stranger Than Paradise, the iconic indie movie by Jim Jarmusch, with Polaroid photos shot by executive producer Otto Grokenberger shot on location in the years 1983/84. The material has surfaced about a year ago, and has not been shown before.

Interview and presentation of the book with the publishers, the executive producer of the film and photographer Otto Grokenberger. Interesting insights, nice little stories and details from the time he was on the road with Jim Jarmusch, his wife Sara Driver and the actors.

16.30 Cássia Vila, Sarah Käsmayr Romanticise the revolution. Forget the day after. (Textem Verlag )

Reading, presentation and discussion of the analogue and digital publication Nevertheless. 17 Manifestos. 

The booklet and website investigate aspects of digital culture. The performances and figurations of the texts are capable of revealing connections between the art-practices and theoretical elaborations, providing a frame for discussion.

17.00 PageFive I Shout that me: Stories of Czech fanzines from the 80s till now

Published in November 2017 by PageFive, for the first time it takes its readers through uncharted waters of the Czech fanzine scene, that is, of unofficial amateur magazines. It brings to light stories of those who fell for first computer games or wrote sci-fi stories, who obsessively compiled their own metal music charts, who were driven to street demonstrations by hardcore punk music or who wanted to change the standing of women in society. And who then wrote about it freely in their magazines.

18.00  Michael Barthel  Ververbüntede. Sprechkonzert (Vexer Verlag)

Michael Barthel’s text and audio works deal with de/localisation: protection, refuge, home – as well as with all the possibilities that might be inscribed into these terms. In Barthel’s performances, it’s language that circles these possibilities, that touches them and hesitates, that seeks cover and leaves them to their own wits – and with it, a choir.

Born 1977, grown up in East Berlin, Barthel lives in Leipzig since 2002. „Prunk“, his first book has been published by Vexer Verlag in early 2018. His latest CD „Halber Pogo“, is released by Tochnit Aleph.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

12.30 Paul Buck Library. A Suitable Case for Treatment (MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE 2018)

Paul Buck has been writing and publishing since the late sixties. His work is characterised by its sabotaging of the various forms in order to explore their overlaps and differences. Through the seventies he also edited the seminal magazine Curtains, with its focus on bringing French writing into a weave with English and American writers and artists.

Buck will read from Library. A Suitable Case for Treatment (MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE 2018), a book of essays and interviews, concerned predominantly with sexual questions: the subjects in art, film, and literature—the issues tied to Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse, Madonna’s sexual assault in Dangerous Game, Clunie Reid’s use of language, Richard Prince’s obsession with books, and Paul Mayersberg’s articulations regarding sex.

13.00  Ju Hee Hong European Art Book Fairs on the Shelf (Summer Forest, South Korea)

During my visits to different art book fairs across Europe (London, Paris, Berlin, Ghent) from May 2017 to November 2017, I provided coverage of  their vibrant events and attempted to capture the shared energetic atmosphere. In order to oversee the current art book market and publishing flow in Europe, I met various thought provoking publishers and visitors from different backgrounds and shared their book fair experiences. We also discussed their thoughts regarding current publishing trends and any perceived difficulties. I kept any information related to the fair including workshops, lectures and general data, as well as information from fair directors, publishers and visitors’ interviews. This book is envisioned as a re-collection of these exchanges and a culmination in the shape of a celebration of the vibrant spirit palpable in these fairs.

13.30 Amelia Santana, Marcela Rodríguez   Coto de caza salvaje (Pequeño Pato Salvaje Editorial) 

Coto de Caza (‘Hunting Reserve‘), by Juan Yactayo Sono, is a very personal tour inside illegal cruising spots in the city of Lima, Peru. Through 61 cellphone photographs and a selection of conversations and testimonies by the author, we immerse ourselves in an atmosphere of pleasure, darkness, fear, tension and loneliness, which uncovers the sensitive transit of a young man exploring his own sexuality.

14.00 Eduardo Arias, Catalina Jaramillo Trabajos Imprácticos / Impractical Works (Kitschic)

Trabajos Imprácticos (‘Impractical Works‘) is a book made by visual poems, which –through literature, astrology, astronomy and navigation – concerns itself with loneliness after love, lovesickness and longing for an impossible romantic wholeness. Catalina works with visual and poetic strategies to represent her quest for a quiet and permanent state of time-space stability.

In a video performance from Brazil, Catalina will try to translate and explain selected poems of her book from Spanish to German – the prior, in a sort of visual and verbal reading, in some cases rebuilding them to match the new language she faces.

After that, Eduardo Arias, Kitschic Ediciones publisher, will talk about the book editing process.

14.30 Nina Prader (Lady Liberty Press), John Z. Komurki Print as Practice Round Table

Print as Practice is an informal roundtable series exploring different approaches to print media and autonomous publishing. Hosted by John Z. Komurki & Nina Prader (Lady Liberty Press), previous discussions brought together diverse actors to address questions of representation, collectivity and distribution.

This edition of Print as Practice will start with brief presentations from six different print-orientated projects from around the world. It will then open up into a collective discussion, pooling ideas, challenges and strategies. An open-source document will be produced based on the discussion.

Participants: Undertone Collective, Fukt Magazine, PageFive, Knust/Extrapool, Casa en Blanco, Pequeño Pato Salvaje.

15.30 Sholem Krishtalka, Florian Hetz. A Berlin Diary 

Since his move to Berlin in the Spring of 2013, Sholem Krishtalka has been keeping a visual diary, a narrative document of his life that exists somewhere between cinema, bande-dessinee and drawing. The Diary documents his life in the city: the exploration of the excesses, darkness and tenderness of its famed queer scene; an excitement of a new emergent life; and a coping with a life left behind. Originally published and distributed online, Krishtalka began to publish the chapters of the diary as a series of artist’s books in Autumn 2015. The first 13 chapters were published all at once, in six volumes. He has just released the 14th chapter, which will be launched exclusively at Miss Read.

Guest interviewer for the Berlin Diary book / launch is Florian Hetz.

16.00 Erica Overmeer (O Book Publisher / Impresión Mexicana), Carlo Menon (Accattone) Alternative publishing practices in architecture

Erica Overmeer and Carlo Menon will discuss the relationship between photography, architecture and alternative publishing practices, and the latest issues of Impression Mexicana, dedicated to two recent projects of Brandlhuber+, as well as the latest issue of Accattone, based entirely on the work of Armin Linke.

With Impresión Mexicana, O Book Publisher set up a print line that operates from Mexico City, working with Mexican vernacular printing procedures. With a strong visual orientation, Accattone explores minor practices in art and architecture through the specific means of the printed magazine.

17.00 Andi Schoon Die schwache Stimme (Textem Verlag) (presentation in German)

Andi Schoons literarisches Debüt »Die schwache Stimme« kreist um die Fragen der bürgerlichen Spätmoderne: Tue ich das Richtige? Komme ich damit ans Ziel oder
zumindest durch? Und will ich das eigentlich? Die Erzählung betrachtet vier Personen aus unterschiedlichen Milieus, ihre Ideen, Annahmen und Zweifel. Leise fügt »Die schwache Stimme« dem Selbstbild der vier Protagonisten und der Beschaffenheit ihrer Welt störende Elemente, isolierte Details und die lästige Sachlage bei. Das stete Flüstern der inneren Stimme ist
schwer zu deuten. Sie weiß mehr über uns als wir selbst und wirkt wie ein schwaches Gift – unmerklich, aber gewiss. Wir begegnen dem neurechten Unternehmensberater Alois Paschen und seinen Berliner Zwiegesprächen mit den Geistern der Vergangenheit. Die Hamburger Medienkünstlerin Sarah Tobler möchte das Neo-Biedermeier ihrer Partnerschaft abschütteln; doch es gibt kein Entkommen, auf jeder Flucht begegnet man schließlich sich selbst. »Sie gönnen diesem Land keinen Fortschritt«: Mit dieser Ahnung lüftet ein Anthropologe in Tanger das Geheimnis des Schriftstellers Paul Bowles. Und in Bern gerät das elitäre Weltbild des Theologieprofessors Konrad Bruckner beim jährlichen Praxistest seiner Predigten ins Wanken.

In vier Miniaturen setzt sich Andi Schoon mit Biografien der Spätmoderne auseinander. Kurzweilig und pointiert.

17.30 Yizhi Zhang (Doooogs, China),  Nathan Ross Davis & Sarah Elawad (water.with.water, Qatar) Book Tours in Asia

Doooogs is an art book distribution and self-publishing platform based in Berlin and Beijing, offering greater visibility to local culture and art publications. Since 2017, doooogs has focused on cultural exchange between China and Germany by organizing art book fairs and other events in both countries.
With water.with.water, An experimental publishing project working at the intersection of Gulf culture and contemporary art&design, they will share their brief insight into the different self-publishing culture in Asia and thier Journal with books from different art book fairs.

18.00 Martin La Roche Contreras  Manual. Instructions for Give and receive. One round  by Catalina Bauer (Ediciones Popolet)

“To give and receive” is a collective knitting activity in which a group of participants stand in a circle facing each other (we refer to it as a round). The activity is based on the process of basket weaving but its initial inspiration was the traditional Maypole dance; a celebration that is present in many cultures and among other things symbolises the union of people.

For this evening in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, ribbons or a piece of fabric cut into strips will be used for knitting. It can be practiced by 4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18 or 20 people, depending on the participants present. Few simple instructions will be followed from the book “Manual” to reenact this knitting.