Vanessa Place, Robert Fitterman: Notes on Conceptualisms (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · appropriation, conceptual art, conceptual writing, flarf, language, literary theory, literature, poetics, poetry, sampling, writing

“What is conceptual writing, how does it differ from Conceptual Art, what are some of the dominant forms of conceptualism, where does an impure or hybrid conceptualism fit in, what about the baroque, what about the prosody of procedure, what are the links between appropriation and conceptual writing, how does conceptual writing rely on a new way of reading, a “thinkership” that can shift the focus away from the text and onto the concept, what is the relationship between conceptual writing and technology or information culture, and why has this tendency taken hold in the poetry community now? What follows, then, is a collection of notes, aphorisms, quotes and inquiries on conceptual writing. We have co-authored this text through correspondence, shared reading interests, and similar explorations. Notes on Conceptualisms is far from a definitive text, and much closer to a primer, a purposefully incomplete starting place, where readers, hopefully, can enter so as to participate.”
Publisher Ugly Duckling Presse, Brooklyn, NY, 2009
Open Access
ISBN 9781933254463
78 pages
Commentary: Ron Silliman (2009).
Reviews: Thom Donovan (BOMB, 2009), Christopher Higgs (Chapbook Review, 2009), Karla Kelsey (Octopus Magazine, c2010), Ken L. Walker (Coldfront, 2010), John Bloomberg-Rissman (Galatea Resurrects 16, 2011), Alethia Alfonso (Notas, 2011, ES), Joel Kopplin & Kurt Milberger (HTML Giant, 2013).
Dialogue between Vanessa Place and Tania Ørum (Jacket2, 2012)
IRWIN (ed.): State in Time (2014)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, appropriation, art, art theory, contemporary art, politics, retro-avant-garde, theory, utopia

“The NSK State in Time emerged in 1992, evolving in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the transformation Neue Slowenische Kunst. Existing both as an artwork and a social formation, a state that encompasses all time but holding no territory, the NSK State in Time has for two decades pushed the boundaries of artistic and political practice. This volume collects together, for the first time, analyses of the NSK State in Time including its relationship with the changing context of Eastern Europe, the connection between aesthetics and the state, the rise of NSK folk art, and documents the First NSK Citizen’s Congress in 2010.”
Includes essays by Inke Arns, Huang Chien-Hung, Eda Čufer, Marina Gržinić, Irwin, Tomaz Mastnak, Viktor Misiano, Alexei Monroe, Ian Parker, Avi Pitchon, Stevphen Shukaitis, Slavoj Žižek, and Jonah Westerman.
Publisher Minor Compositions, 2014
Open Access
ISBN 9781570272769
178 pages
PDF (from the publisher)
Scribd
Hillel Schwartz: The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles, 2nd ed. (1996/2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · animal, appropriation, art, children, computing, copy, death, fashion, film, gender, genetics, history, imitation, japan, language, machine, memory, music, photography, piracy, property, reenactment, reproduction, sculpture, simulation, slavery, statistics, surgery, technology, theatre, time, war

The Culture of the Copy is an unprecedented attempt to make sense of the Western fascination with replicas, duplicates, and twins. In a work that is breathtaking in its synthetic and critical achievements, Hillel Schwartz charts the repercussions of our entanglement with copies of all kinds, whose presence alternately sustains and overwhelms us. Through intriguing, and at times humorous, historical analysis and case studies in contemporary culture, Schwartz investigates a stunning array of simulacra—counterfeits, decoys, mannequins, and portraits; ditto marks, genetic cloning, war games, and camouflage; instant replays, digital imaging, parrots, and photocopies; wax museums, apes, and art forgeries, not to mention the very notion of the Real McCoy. Working through a range of theories on biological, mechanical, and electronic reproduction, Schwartz questions the modern esteem for authenticity and uniqueness. The Culture of the Copy shows how the ethical dilemmas central to so many fields of endeavor have become inseparable from our pursuit of copies—of the natural world, of our own creations, indeed of our very selves.
This updated edition takes notice of recent shifts in thought with regard to such issues as biological cloning, conjoined twins, copyright, digital reproduction, and multiple personality disorder. At once abbreviated and refined, it will be of interest to anyone concerned with proglems of authenticity, identity, and originality.
First published in 1996
Publisher Zone Books, New York, 2013
ISBN 1935408453, 9781935408451
480 pages
Review (Terence Hawkes, London Review of Books, 1997)
Review (Francis Kane, The New York Times, 1997)
Review (Todd Gitlin, Los Angeles Times, 1997)
Download (removed on 2014-3-20 upon request of the publisher)
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