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.

From our current newsletter:

Our year is off to a productive start and we are busy gearing up for book fairs, zine fests, new publications, exhibitions, talks and more. We hope things are going well for everyone.

Half Letter Press has several new items in stock: Two titles by Interference Archive, La Persistencia de los Sueños / The Persistence of Dreams (pictured above) and RadioActivity! Antinuclear Movements from Three Mile Island to Fukushima; America/n by Lucky Pierre; three zines about ABC No Rio, ABC No Rio: Art Effects - Decadent Performance Era, ABC No Rio: Founders Era Artifacts, and ABC No Rio: Artifice.

Half Letter Press and Temporary Services will be at this year’s LA Art Book Fair, organized by Printed Matter! It is February 1-3, at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. We are really excited to be participating. Marc will be there on our behalf. We will be sharing our booth with one of our favorite LA artists and book nerds, Lisa Anne Auerbach (her latest book from her exhibition in Malmoe, Sweden kicks ass and you should get a copy from her!). Come out and say hello and support our friends The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, Antena, Edie Fake, Soberscove Press, Justseeds, and more!

Temporary Services was invited to talk at PSU for their MFA Art and Social Practice Conversation Series. Salem will be there in Portland on our behalf, January 30.

The very first solo presentation of the work of Temporary Services in London will be at the Architecture Association in February. We are presenting two collections of photographs from our Public Phenomena and Mobile Phenomena series. We have made a brand new large format poster-booklet–A1 that folds down to A5– which we are giving away during the run of the show. All of our publications related to these photo series will be available at the AA’s book store. The exhibition opens February 22nd. Brett and Marc will be there and will talk about the exhibition on the 23rd. We are also arranging some other talks around London and you can check our CURRENT SERVICESpage for the latest information.

To contact us with ordering questions, chat about books you would like to see at HLP or anything else, email:publishers@halfletterpress.com.

We are very happy to report that Tamms Correctional Center in southern Illinois was closed for good on January 4th! We honor the men who were tortured there for so many years and celebrate that their humanity was finally acknowledged by the state of Illinois. Congratulations also go to our good friend and tireless activist, Laurie Jo Reynolds, who has fought so hard to shut Tamms down. We worked with her, Tamms Year Ten, and Sarah Ross on Supermax Subscriptions. That project will continue to trade peoples’ unused frequent flier miles for magazine subscriptions for people in long term solitary confinement.

You can also socialize with us via Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr.

– Temporary Services & Half Letter Press

This coming Friday, we have a table at Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, February 1−3, 2013.

Stop by and visit Marc; he will be there on our behalf. 

Currently available on sale in our webstore: Collective Actions: Audience Recollections from the First Five Years, 1976-1981

An artist group that even our long-running group Temporary Services knew absolutely nothing about! We are happy to carry this new book from Soberscove that unearths some interesting Soviet group work in a well-designed and beautifully printed book, as is typical for this Chicago-based press.

“Active in Moscow since 1976, the Collective Actions group played a key role in the development of conceptual and performance art in the Soviet Union. Inspired by the work of John Cage, the organizers invited audiences to take part in minimal, outdoor actions in fields and forests on the edges of the city that explored the nature of the aesthetic event. These spatio-temporal events directed viewers’ attention to the pure contemplation of their own perceptions, and over time, the actions produced masses of documentary material. Collective Actions: Audience Recollections from the First Five Years, 1976-1981 concentrates on the early period of field actions when the problems of documentation—-how to capture and convey ephemeral action to non-participants—-were just beginning to be considered.”

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.

Spread from our new book Mobile Phenomena!

We are having a book release for it at Motto Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, November 6th.

This weekend, we will be at Publish and be Damned: Nordic Models, Index: The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden, October 12-13, 2012

Publish and be Damned: Nordic Models is a two-day convention that brings together independent publishers and distributors from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The project is conceived by Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation in collaboration with London-based organisation Publish and be Damned. The convention unfolds as a conference and a fair, which will be accompanied by workshops open to members of the public. Books, fanzines, magazines and critical journals from diverse Nordic cultural scenes will be presented alongside other international publications from the archives of Publish and be Damned. The convention examines whether “Nordic models” in artist–led and grass-roots self-publishing culture are emerging. On the one hand it seeks to identify shared methods for staging and debating the intersection of text-based visual art with literature, poetry, theory, philosophy and translation. On the other, it focuses on the socio-political, economic, cultural and technologic working conditions of the participants in order to explore how their specific perspectives respond to local and international contexts defined by free-market and/or informal economies of exchange.

FAIR: Saturday, 13 October, 3 – 9 p.m. Index’s gallery space is made available to the invited publishers and distributors from Ârhus, Bergen, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Malmö, Oslo, Reykjavík, Tromsø and Turku to sell and trade their printed matter. The fair is an opportunity for visitors to discover and purchase titles not easily accessible otherwise, and to meet in person a range of producers often invisible. It also offers a meeting point for publishers and editors to foster new partnerships and a social community.

Participants: Pork Salad Press (Copenhagen), Half Letter Press & Temporary Services (Copenhagen/Chicago), continent. journal (Copenhagen), Sideprojects (Ârhus), Napa Books (Helsinki), OK Do magazine (Helsinki), Iconoclast Publications (Turku), Útúrdúr press (Reykjavík), Torpedo Press (Oslo), Ctrl+Z Publishing (Bergen), Kuk & Parfyme (Tromsø/Oslo), Kome til deg i Tidende (Oslo), OEI Editor (Stockholm), In Edit Mode Press (Malmö), SITE magazine (Stockholm), WITNAS (Gothenburg), B-B-B-Books (Stockholm), DRUCKSACHE (Stockholm), Geist magazine (Stockholm).

 INDEX – THE SWEDISH CONTEMPORARY ART FOUNDATION 

New from Half Letter Press: Mobile Phenomena by Temporary Services!

Mobile Phenomena is a new collection of over eighty-five photographs and two interviews. It is the result of years of research on common instances of mobile phenomena that impact people and their uses of shared city and rural spaces. In this book you will find bookmobiles, mobile forms of commerce, inventive mobile art projects, mobile structures created for use during protest, and some strange applications of mobility that defy easy description, categorization, or whose function could not be readily discerned. Mobile Phenomena can unhinge the expected roles we take in shared city spaces. Mobile structures can become a new norm when they work. It is our hope that this book can be an inspiration to other citizens, artists, activists, nomads, and anyone who is interested in escaping the constraints of their location, culture, or other factors that make realizing oneʼs desires difficult.

Mobile Phenomena includes contributions by: Courtney Dailey, Alexis Petroff, Joseph Robertson, Jen Hofer, Eric Steen, Christian Ettinger, Platform, Liberate Tate, The Center For Tactical Magic, and Nils Norman.

The book is now available for order. Please help us spread the word, and note some great special deals we have going on!

Supermax Subscriptions – Required Reading: Printed Material as Agent of Intervention, Center For Book Arts, New York, October 3 – December 15, 2012

Our collaborative effort with Tamms Year Ten and Sarah Ross, called Supermax Subscriptions (scroll to the bottom of the page for more information), is included in yet another great exhibition put together at The Center for Book Arts in NYC!

Here is the poster booklet we made for the exhibition:  SUPERMAX SUBSCRIPTIONS 

Required Reading: Printed Material as Agent of Intervention presents fifteen projects that range from published books and correspondence to performance and video documentation, and are meant to challenge a political or social issue. The works in this exhibition demonstrate the ability of printed materials to act as symbols of ideologies and beliefs. They are used by the participating artists as social agents - intervening in public space to expose an audience to new opportunities and alternative concepts. In a culture where visual noise is inescapable, printed matter provides an opportunity to pause, grasp, ruminate, and pass along. We use it to educate ourselves and others, to create a gash in a stagnant situation, articulate a new context, and imagine our society as it can and should be. Exhibition includes work by: Amy Balkin; AREA Chicago (Samuel Barnett, Euan Hague, Jayne Hileman, Dave Pabelllon, Daniel Tucker, and Rebecca Zorach); Yevgeniy Fiks; Pablo Helguera; Marisa Jahn; Packard Jennings; Jen Kennedy and Liz Linden; Matt Kenyon with Doug Easterly; Steve Lambert; Lize Mogel with Mara Cherkasky, John Cloud, and Ryan Shepardt; Queerocracy and Carlos Motta; Occupied Newspapers (The Boston Occupier, The Occupied Times of London, The Occupied Oakland Tribune, Occupy Pittsburgh Now, and The Occupied Wall Street Journal); Sheryl Oring; Dread Scott; and Temporary Services with Tamms Year Ten and Sarah Ross.

Organized by Yaelle Amir, Independent Curator

 The Center For Book Arts 

TS and HLP Publications – The practical function of 12 networked publications with 4 books, 2 posters and 1 chart at the gallery, Christophe Daviet-Thery, Paris, September 14 – October 21, 2012.

We have work in this exhibition.

Exhibition curated by Emanuele De Donno.

This exhibition and publication is part of a series of FREEbook exhibitions and projects focusing on democratic and open practices of artist’s publishing.

Agency, Danielle Aubert/Maia Asshaq, Ariella Azoulay, A Constructed World, Joseph Beuys, John Cage, Critical Art Ensemble, Jeremy Deller, Vegetali Ignoti, Ben Kinmont, Gert Van Kesteren, Sol LeWitt, Bruno Munari, Richard Prince, Raqs Media Collective, Temporary Service, Stephen Willats, Erwin Wurm.

“The practical function of 12 networked publications” will open on Saturday, September 14, as a part of a “FREEbook” event, which will focus on democratic and open practices of artists’ publishing. The exhibition, which has been conceived as an active process that will produce a catalogue, includes small publications, booklets, excerpts, files, and reproductions of the books displayed following the instructions of the artists; it is a program to create and incorporate a medium.

The arrangement is a basic layout composed of 4 bookshelves that visitors can browse, 3 tables in the middle, 1 text on a wall, a wooden displayer with four “totally connected” artist’s books, two posters, one chart.

This platform is an ‘open’ structure, an in-progress medium, with sheets, plates, pictures and notes. It will also include an updatable and changeable publishing system, as well as a working site for a “free book”.

 Christophe Daviet-Thery 

A fresh new addition to our webstore:

Big Women, Big Girls by Cate Stevens-Davis

“The second book from Stamped Books is Big Women, Big Girls - a small, thick multi-colored book with flash fiction by Cate Stevens-Davis. The book itself has long “hairs” coming off the side and thick pages that range in size.The text gives insight into the world of plus-sized women; It enters into their insecurities, but also their passions. The stories range from heartfelt, encounters to hilarious bar pick-ups.”

The writer bio for this book is also really excellent:

“Despite what you’ve heard about fat people, actual fat person Cate Stevens-Davis has fallen in and out of love, had adventures on three continents, and never been stuck in a chair. She has also earned an MFA from Chatham University in 2009 and her work has appeared in Six Sentences, the shady side review, The Linnet’s Wings and others. Cate lives, writes, and fats around town in Pittsburgh, PA.”

NEW AT HLP! Not if but When: Culture Beyond Oil, By Liberate Tate, Platform, Art Not Oil

‘Not if but when: Culture Beyond Oil’ is a publication that sets out to discuss oil sponsorship of the arts. The single issue, limited edition publication features artworks in dialogue with the BP Gulf of Mexico catastrophe and articles that set out the compelling arguments for an end to BP and Shell’s murky involvement with many of the nation’s favourite cultural institutions.

Each copy of this full colour 1000 limited edition will be numbered and daubed with oil from Gulf of Mexico beaches by featured artist Ruppe Koselleck, as part of his ongoing Takeover BP project, in which Koselleck sells artworks to buy shares with the aim of ultimately taking over BP.

New Book In Stock! The Unholy Bow, by Terence Hannum, artist and member of the highly and rightfully acclaimed band Locrian. After countless ‘zines and other editions, this is Terence’s first perfect bound book, published by 5nakefork. It’s a series of visual and verbal meditations on headbanging.

“Slowly the crowd gathers, heads hung as the musicians pick up their instruments. Upon the first note of feedback the heads start moving. Both performer and witness begin a ritualized dance in a flurry of hair, a profane genuflection. An unholy bow.”