Cynthia Chris
from Printed Matter 1995 Catalog
Only a century ago, the communications systems we now take for granted were still in development: the telephone had not yet reached more than 1 in 50 American homes; the television was still a nascent idea that would not come into common use for several decades. Now, as we approach the end of the Twentieth Century, it''s a whole new world, from the internet to new technologies just visible down the pike, such as virtual reality and high definition t.v. Now, an encyclopedia which once occupied multiple volumes and several feet of shelf space - not to mention weighing hundreds of pounds - can fit on a single CD-ROM (with not only text but also moving pictures and sound) that can be slipped into a pocket. These and any other technology that operates at a distance are now performing their tasks of storing or transmitting information at capacities and speeds which are nearly inconceivable - and changing more rapidly than most of us can keep up.
In such a day and age, one has to wonder if the oft-foretold death of the book is imminent. In fact, the book is far from being replaced by new technologies. It remains a primary form of information storage and retrieval. For artists working in book format, new technologies have offered new tools and new formats to explore.
For only the second time, Printed Matter''s catalog includes a section devoted to artists'' projects on computer disks and CD-ROM. While our holdings in these media are still limited, we are committed to including artists'' publications published by means of new technologies in our inventory.
Artists have not only begun to use new technologies; they have also, and with as much resolve, begun to explore the concepts that new technologies have engendered. For example, Traces of the Virtual, by the Tallahassee-based group Critical Art Ensemble, tracks the historical antecedents to the concept of cyberspace over nearly two millennia of Western thought. Notably, this title is a collective effort, like many on related topics. When new technologies is the subject matter, the publication is nearly always multi-authored, as if working collaboratively in book format were to mimic and document the rapid exchange of information among multiple parties which is facilitated by the internet.
Such projects do not account for all recent collaborative bookworks. Among new titles are collaborations in the traditional sense: the product of artists working in tandem on a single idea, as an opportunity to bring to a project a broader range of skills, sensibilities, and concerns than one could do alone. Still, then, the book is a record of the exchange of ideas among artists, as in Ancestor Dragon Buddha Bean by Miekal And, Alison Knowles, and Elizabeth Was.
Other books, also executed in a traditional form of collaboration, combine parallel efforts on the same subject (usually images and text), as in Rouen: Touring Machine/ Intermittent Futures, a "virtual" guidebook to an imaginary city, with texts by Judith Barry and Brad Miskell and drawings by Thomas Zummer.
Another form of collaborative, or more accurately collective artists'' publication, is appearing with increasing regularity in both book and periodical formats. These publications, which anthologize artists'' projects, exemplify the sensibility of artists'' books of the 1970''s - mechanically reproduced, (usually) inexpensive, produced as a means to reach viewers outside of the gallery system and its marketplace values, and available for viewing for the life of the book, rather than just the duration of an exhibition. For example, Crash: Nostalgia for the Absence of Cyberspace, edited by Thomas Zummer and Robert Reynolds, essentially an exhibition catalog for a show of the same title at Thread Waxing Space, turned its pages over to artists'' projects and text which may or may not relate to their exhibited work. The catalog stands alone as an anthology of essays, augmenting rather than simply documenting the exhibition.
Other, similar projects displace the idea of exhibition, intending to bypass the need for space other than the page. In Promotional Copy, for example, contributors can bring performance documentation far beyond the original audience; use the page to exhibit plans for work that does not then actually have to be constructed; or refer readers to work in other venues or to future projects.
Of course, collections of artists'' projects are not a new idea, and perhaps nowhere have they been so successfully and variably executed as in periodicals. Some notable periodical venues for artists'' projects reached milestones this year: among them, Art/Life published its 150th issue; New Observations surpassed its 100th issue; and WhiteWalls celebrated 16 years in print. Art Police Magazine, consistently an unabashedly outrageous compiler of artists'' comics, commemorated its 20th year with, ironically, its final issue.
Now these established periodicals are joined by dozens of upstarts, including countless ''zines and journals, some short-lived. Reflecting this trend, over one-third of the titles in our Periodicals listing have published five or fewer issues to date; five titles are premieres. Of course some are destined to become institutions; Documents and Felix, for example, with only four issues each under their belts, have quickly become significant contributors to contemporary cultural discourse.
Technological developments are hardly the only phenomenon of the late Twentieth Century to redefine our world. Over the last decade, political and geographical borders have been crossed and redrawn in, first, perestroika, glasnost, and later, the dissolution of the Soviet Union; the conflict in the former Yugoslavia; the reunification of Germany; and the "opening up" of nations once stereotypically portrayed as firmly, monolithically, and mysteriously behind a so-called Iron Curtain. Artists in Central and Easter Europe are now experiencing unprecedented access to means of mechanical reproduction, increasing trade and travel with Western Europe and North America, and loosened censorious distinctions between "official" and "underground" art. These conditions may prove responsible for changing both the form and content of their work. Already, Printed Matter''s inventory of publications from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Serbia, has grown appreciably.
Here in the United States, social and political movements have paved the way for another unprecedented body of work. Just a few years ago, Printed Matter''s inventory contained only a handful of titles by openly gay and lesbian artists, addressing gay or lesbian issues. This is no longer the case. Gay subject matter and openly gay artists have reached new levels of visibility in most media over the last decade, in ''zines, glossy magazines, film, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, pop music, dance, theater-and of course, the visual arts. But it is important to recall the queer publishing book was sparked by gay rights struggles and AIDS activism of the mid-1980s, with do-it-yourself mass-produced items intended for public consumption (leaflets, posters, stickers, buttons) by members of political organizations such as ACT UP, collectives such as Gran Fury and Fierce Pussy, and others. Some of this ephemera appeared at Printed Matter, and was soon joined by dozens of artists'' books, which provided AIDS education, protested homophobia, or countered stereotypes. Now, our inventory includes gay publications ranging from Claire Dolan''s comic-style, photocopied booklets Are You Ready for the Adventures of Go-Go Girl... to Kerry Kehoe''s elegant and personal Our Lives Interwoven to David Cannon Dashiell''s complex, multi-faceted Queer Mysteries.
Clearly, books are, and are likely to remain an essential means by which artists communicate. As Marysia Lewandowska has noted, "It seems important that the vigorous dispersal of ideas, their material and conceptual manifestations, are periodically gathered and bound in an attempt to orient ourselves amongst them. Books always offer a more durable and concentrated space for uncertainties to unfold."
Marysia Lewandowska. "Foreword." Sightworks, Volume 3, (London: Chance Books, 1993), p.7.