101. Forget to die. Repeat and live forever.  

— Lucky Pierre, Actions for Chicago Torture Justice

Another potential use of the score which I’m increasingly interested in is in the realm of political activism. How might the performance writing form of ‘action’ expand beyond the recognizable activist performance model (scripts for street theater, etc.) and/or the much more militant and confrontational modes of direct action which are generally discussed in terms of efficacy (symbolic &/or material) rather than ‘as performance’ (as if the latter threatens to turn the political into the ‘merely’ aesthetic)?1

One recent example of new thinking along this continuum uses the instruction-art model to propose actions that range from the more conventionally confrontational political activism to ‘symbolic’ art-actions to the seemingly impossible/ ’imaginational’/ ’unthinkable.’

Read more of this article by David Buuck.

Brand new booklet, Records as Portable Exhibitions and Interactive, Participatory Objects, arrived just in time for our exhibition that opens this Tuesday at Texas State University.

One of our booklet holders with a brand new booklet to the far left. We are finishing up installing a show at TSU here in San Marcos. Come out on Tuesday if you are in the area. 

NOW AT HLP: Public Phenomena [Poster-Booklet]

By Temporary Services
February 2013

This poster-booklet is the result of over fifteen years of photographic documentation and research on the variety of modifications and inventions that people make in public. From roadside memorials to piles of unused bicycles, people consistently alter shared common spaces to suit their needs, or let both man-made and natural aberrations run wild. The result is a new kind of public space that lies just outside of ideological articulations – with creative, inspiring, and sometimes confounding moments that push past the original planned design of cities.

Public Phenomena continues to demonstrate to us that people will always find ways to resist plans others make and try to impose on them, whether through direct defiance or quiet misuse. This inspires us to learn from city spaces and the people that use them rather than seeking to impose aesthetics on these spaces.

This publication is related to 3 others that we have made: Public Phenomena [Booklet]; Public Phenomena [Book] - PRINT and PDF; and Mobile Phenomena.

Marc and Brett are in London this week. They start installing work for this show. It opens on Friday. Come by if you are in town.

We are having our annual two-week sale at Half Letter Press: 10% off everything in the store including PDFs!

We will throw in a copy of our new book Mobile Phenomena for all orders over $50.

Nice little write up in Kunsten.nu about the exhibition of the War Is Trauma portfolio (put together by Justseeds, IVAW, and Booklyn) at rum46 in Aarhus, Denmark.

Temporary Services contributed to the portfolio with a poster. Brett from TS collaborated with rum46  to make the show happen. It is up until November 25th.

[Image by Erik Ruin. You can download the poster and others by following the link above.]

Our November Newsletter is available.

[Image — Public Phenomena: Pile of bikes, Copenhagen, 2011]

Ghost House in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen. Similar to images from the book Public Phenomena of Ghost Houses from Chicago, Portland, Barcelona and Halifax.

We are offering Mobile Phenomena + Audible Dwelling together for a low price.

Book release for Mobile Phenomena at Motto Charlottenborg, November 6th, 19.00-21.00, with Nils Norman and Benny Henningsen’s mobile pizza oven: there will be free pizza!

Here is the facebook event link.

Image: mobile pile of crap posing as governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin

As we get ready to send a new book to the printer this week, we just wanted to remind you that we have great books in stock, like a recent one we published: 

Revolution as an Eternal Dream: the Exemplary Failure of the Madame Binh Graphics Collective by Mary Patten, with a preface by Lucy Lippard and an afterword by Gregory Sholette

Revolution as an Eternal Dream: the Exemplary Failure of the Madame Binh Graphics Collective (MBGC) examines the political practice and visual propaganda of a now-obscure women’s poster, printmaking, and street art collective based in New York City between 1975 and 1983. For a brief, intense period of time, the MBGC collaborated on projects against racism and in solidarity with national liberation movements, producing many beautiful multicolored silkscreened prints, note cards, banners, posters, and other print ephemera before withdrawing into the isolation of a sectarian and militaristic political line. By 1982 its core members were in prison or underground. Revolution as an Eternal Dream calls up the perpetual desire for revolution, but also the frailty of such dreams.

Please spread the word about this publication. We will give away a free copy signed by Mary Patten to one random person that reblogs this post. You have until midnight Central time on September 16th to reblog this and then we’ll pick a winner.

[Click the book cover for more details and a look inside]

If you’re in NYC, check out HELP/LESS, the summer exhibition at Printed Matter. Some of our publications are in the browsing library. Show is up through September 29, 2012!

(via PrintedMatter.org)

Crusin’ the couch? Check out Temporary Services on Vimeo and watch our movie “Framing The Artists” (Click here for a review & discussion) as well as some of the concerts we arranged for our Music Mountain project in Denmark!