Mono.Kultur and The nOulipian Analects (pt.1)

This is gonna be all about constraints.

Yesterday I did end up going to that self-publishing book fair. It was exactly what I expected. Lots of amazing books, really interesting topics, stuff you would never see anywhere else. I did notice several books which are available at the proQM independent bookshelf. But there are two publishers who I am very excited about!

The first is a collective of writers, designers, journalists, photographers, editors, etc. who collaborate as a collective to put together a magazine called Mono.Kultur. Their back-issues read as a who's who of people you should know about - in detail. There are about 8 people who make the collective and they have to unanimously decide to feature an artist -  of any persuasion - in the magazine. Each issue is dedicated to that artist and can possibly include photos, art, an intro, epilogue, etc. Part of the idea is to promote German artists abroad, but all three back issues I picked up are of Americans:

Miranda July (Artist)
Trent Reznor (Musician)
Richard Powers (Author)

The Miranda July issue is packaged in a sleeve which unfolds to reveal one of he signature posters:


The interview is well done and lots of her personality come through. If you are not familiar with her, get this issue, or else see here and the awesome website for her book here.

My favourite part of the interview:

I guess I really like systems. It's like plyaing business when you are little, or playing library. Tehre is something not very creative about having no rules, you know. No rules is sometimes paralyzing. If I am sitting down to write, I want to have something pretty narrow, a task like, 'Try and make this character not so annoying today.'

Here are some things you can try at home:

#14: Write you life story in less than a day.
#53: Give advice to yourself in the past.
#10: Make a flyer about your day.
#63: Make an encouraging banner.
#58: Record the sound that is keeping you awake.

July has her fingers in many pots and it really incredible. They sum it up really nice in the intro:

You could be thinking, 'what a bunch of lucky breaks.' The truth is, she works ridiculously hard - obsessively, intensely - all the time, and she has been acively pursuing creative projects since she was a teenager.

The Reznor issues is very much about his getting over alcoholism and drug addiction, and the interviewer mostly limits himself to very short questions. July and Reznor were two artists who I already were comfortable with, so I asked for a recommendation for a third issue to pick up, that's how I ended up with Richard Powers, which turned out to be my favourite issue. I have to admit I never heard about him before I picked up his Mono.Kultur issue. The first thing to note is the seriously fantastic ASCII art (see wiki and this gallery for the uninitiated) by Ute Kühn, who actually does photography, painting and installations (UPDATE: Wrong Ute, here the real Ute's web-site: www.playconcrete.com). For example, the cover:

Here is a detail around the eye:

Powers was heavily influenced to write his first book, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985) by an August Sander photograph (1914) of the same name:

The photograph is part of a series to document the people of Westerwald, situated between Cologne and Frankfurt. Here it is reproduced in all it's ASCII glory:

I mean the detail is just spectacular! Here's a zoom of the two farmers on the right:

In the field between the first and second farmer is a quote from the book:

The love of the moribund, the belief that the sickly and perverse hold more possibility for experience than the status quo, has been our times' epidemic of preference. But an opposite mentality, a perennially unfounded optimism, is equally to blame for catastrophe.

I wonder if that quote will ever be out-dated.

There are several amazing ASCII pieces, here is another favourite:

In his tie is written:

As for the interview, it is the longest of the three and also the most intimate, most personal one. Powers is such a profound man, I'm almost ashamed to not be familiar with him. But I will elaborate with some examples in a future post, oh ja, and also get to the nOulipian Analects.