Bernadette Corporation: Reena Spaulings (2005)

“Set in post-9/11 New York City, Reena Spaulings was written by a large collective of writers and artists that bills itself as The Bernadette Corporation. Like most contemporary fiction, Reena Spaulings is about a female twenty-something. Reena is discovered while working as a museum guard and becomes a rich international supermodel. Meanwhile, a bout of terrible weather seizes New York, leaving in its wake a strange form of civil disobedience that stirs its citizens to mount a musical song-and-dance riot called “Battle on Broadway.” Fashioned in the old Hollywood manner by a legion of professional and amateur writers striving to achieve the ultimate blockbuster, the musical ends up being about a nobody who could be anybody becoming a somebody for everybody. The result is generic and perfect—not unlike Reena Spaulings itself, whose many authors create a story in which New York itself strives to become the ultimate collective experiment in which the only thing shared is the lack of uniqueness.”

Publisher Semiotext(e), 2005
Native Agents series
ISBN 158435030X, 9781584350309
216 pages

Reviews: McKenzie Wark (Nettime), Christopher Bollen (Artforum)
Commentary: Emily Pethick (Frieze), Janet Sarbanes (Afterall), Bennett Simpson (Artforum)

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Samuel Madden, Liam Gillick: Memoirs of the Twentieth Century; Prevision. Should the Future Help the Past? (1733/1999/2010)

Written in 1733, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century is widely regarded to contain the earliest known conception of time-travel and, in particular, the first cognitive leap that would allow for a historicized image of the present as seen from the point of view of a distant future. Intriguingly, it is the text itself which is claimed to have traveled back in time and Madden has used this conceit to satirize his own period – tracing out its bureaucratic absurdities into a strange yet pointed vision of the late 20th century: a world politically fraught, overwhelmed with corruption and struggling to reconcile religious faith with scientific discovery.

The mysterious publishing history of the book imparts a certain weight to its claims. Printed anonymously in an edition of 1000, all but 10 copies were immediately destroyed for unknown reasons. It would only be printed once more in 1972 and until now Memoirs… has been extremely scarce – resulting in disappointingly little scholarship. This new edition includes Liam Gillick’s Prevision. Should the Future Help the Past first published in 1999, the very year when Memoirs… leaves off. Gillick explores the socio-political implications inherent in strategic attitudes towards the future with a critical eye to the ‘scenario planning’ of late capitalism. It provides a prescient framework for reconsidering Madden’s text now, just over ten years on since its fictive origination and apocalyptic conclusion.

Madden’s book first printed in 1733
Gillick’s essay first published by ARC Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1999
Publisher Halmos
ISBN 9780615387390
306 pages

commentary on Madden’s book (Paul Alkon, Science Fiction Studies)
Madden at Wikipedia

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View Gillick’s essay online (HTML)

Mikkel Bolt: The Suicide of the Avant-Garde (2009) [Danish]

“A book – essay, cultural intervention, and potential debate-cooker – whose aim is to outline the historical avant-garde’s road to extinction and to ponder on the loss of grander political ambitions in innovative art today.” (Jesper Olsson)

En kritisk analyse – med udgangspunkt i surrealismen, George Bataille (Acéphale), Situationistisk Internationale og mellemkrigstidens europæiske kommunistpartier – af avantgardens selvforståelse. Mikkel Bolt undersøger også, hvordan idéen om revolution tager sig ud aktuelt.

Avantgardens selvmord
Publisher 28/6, Copenhagen, 2009
ISBN 9788792529039
109 pages
via forlaget286

Reviews: Jesper Olsson (Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 2010-2011, EN), Bendik Wold (K&K, 2010, DK).

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