The action art of Hermann Nitsch from past to present

Actions 1962–2003 (1 DVD-PAL) plus a CD containing recordings from the Burgtheater performance 2005.

Hand-numbered edition of 1000 copies. The packaging consists of a slip lid box with banderole, containing a 80 pages book with photos and texts.

Disputed and celebrated: Hermann Nitsch, Actionist and painter, composer and stage designer. He is one of the most renowned Austrian artists of today and nevertheless still divides the art world as before.

Nitsch belongs beside Günter Brus, Otto Mühl and Rudolf Schwarzkogler to the most important main actors of Viennese Actionism. At the beginning of the sixties he carried out his first ‘Actions’ in Vienna, which involved several trials and three terms of imprisonment. His main work, the “Orgy Mystery Theatre”, inspired by Greek mythology, as well as by Antonin Artaud or Sigmund Freud, has been introducing, building up and carrying on all art forms since this time.

On the ...

The action art of Hermann Nitsch from past to present

Actions 1962–2003 (1 DVD-PAL) plus a CD containing recordings from the Burgtheater performance 2005.

Hand-numbered edition of 1000 copies. The packaging consists of a slip lid box with banderole, containing a 80 pages book with photos and texts.

Disputed and celebrated: Hermann Nitsch, Actionist and painter, composer and stage designer. He is one of the most renowned Austrian artists of today and nevertheless still divides the art world as before.

Nitsch belongs beside Günter Brus, Otto Mühl and Rudolf Schwarzkogler to the most important main actors of Viennese Actionism. At the beginning of the sixties he carried out his first ‘Actions’ in Vienna, which involved several trials and three terms of imprisonment. His main work, the “Orgy Mystery Theatre”, inspired by Greek mythology, as well as by Antonin Artaud or Sigmund Freud, has been introducing, building up and carrying on all art forms since this time.

On the DVD there is a 4-hour overview of all ‘Actions’ of 1962–2003, as well as an interview from 2005. The 80-page book (German/English) with a text by Florian Schreiner and numerous photos explains the theoretical basis of Nitsch’s work. The CD contains recordings of the 122nd ‘Action’ from the castle theatre Vienna.

Three important, closely linked concepts stand at the center of the thought of philosopher, economist, social critic, political thinker and psychoanalyst Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997): the imaginary, creation, and autonomy. They refer to the wide spectrum of meanings through which a society develops symbolic forms and institutional structures in order to express its identity. The radical left-wing group Socialisme ou Barbarie, founded by Castoriadis in 1948 together with Claude Lefort, influenced numerous labor movements throughout Europe. For his notes on topics in philosophy, economic science, politics, mathematics, and psychoanalysis, selected by cultural theorist Nikos Papastergiadis, excerpts of which are reproduced here, Castoriadis never used a notebook, but rather any material within his reach, whether the backs of ration cards or the empty lines in a conference program.

With an introduction by Nikos Papastergiadis (*1962), Professor of Cultural Studies and Media & ...

Three important, closely linked concepts stand at the center of the thought of philosopher, economist, social critic, political thinker and psychoanalyst Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997): the imaginary, creation, and autonomy. They refer to the wide spectrum of meanings through which a society develops symbolic forms and institutional structures in order to express its identity. The radical left-wing group Socialisme ou Barbarie, founded by Castoriadis in 1948 together with Claude Lefort, influenced numerous labor movements throughout Europe. For his notes on topics in philosophy, economic science, politics, mathematics, and psychoanalysis, selected by cultural theorist Nikos Papastergiadis, excerpts of which are reproduced here, Castoriadis never used a notebook, but rather any material within his reach, whether the backs of ration cards or the empty lines in a conference program.

With an introduction by Nikos Papastergiadis (*1962), Professor of Cultural Studies and Media & Communications at the University of Melbourne.

In 1927, on the occasion of a several-months-long visit to Paris, Walter Benjamin began taking notes on the Parisian Arcades for his most ambitious book project, which remained unfinished because of the repeatedly interrupted work process and, ultimately, his suicide in Portbou in 1940 when fleeing the German occupation. It was published posthumously as The Arcades Project. The fragments included, among others, the essay “The Artwork in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935–39). With her introduction to a selection of these handwritten notes, Nikola Doll describes how the author attempted “to integrate the principle of the montage as an epistemological technique.” Color charts, schemata, and diagrams act as guiding principles to navigate the thicket of excerpts and quotations. Benjamin’s personal color-coding shows an attempt to make order within the vast constellation of his own notes—a tension between an impulse toward structure and the potential of the open field ...

In 1927, on the occasion of a several-months-long visit to Paris, Walter Benjamin began taking notes on the Parisian Arcades for his most ambitious book project, which remained unfinished because of the repeatedly interrupted work process and, ultimately, his suicide in Portbou in 1940 when fleeing the German occupation. It was published posthumously as The Arcades Project. The fragments included, among others, the essay “The Artwork in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935–39). With her introduction to a selection of these handwritten notes, Nikola Doll describes how the author attempted “to integrate the principle of the montage as an epistemological technique.” Color charts, schemata, and diagrams act as guiding principles to navigate the thicket of excerpts and quotations. Benjamin’s personal color-coding shows an attempt to make order within the vast constellation of his own notes—a tension between an impulse toward structure and the potential of the open field of his interests.

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a writer and philosopher.

Nikola Doll (*1970) is art historian and curator.

Writing notes is an essential component of academic life, a ritual that is performed with as many handwritings as there are individuals. In her essay, Pamela M. Lee addresses the phenomenon of illegibility within notes: of what use are notes if they cannot be deciphered at a later time? Lee develops her “semiotics of illegibility” with reference to the extensive archive of notes written by the prominent American art historian Meyer Schapiro. In Lee’s view, the illegibility of Schapiro’s script stands in especially stark contrast to the clarity of his texts. Incorporating psychoanalysis and literary criticism, Lee’s study draws from Schapiro’s own unique approaches to the theory of signs, and in particular from his canonical paper “On Some Problems in the Semiotics of Visual Art: Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs,” which can be traced back to notes, excerpts of which are reproduced in this publication.

Art historian and cultural critic Pamela M. Lee (*1967) is Professor ...

Writing notes is an essential component of academic life, a ritual that is performed with as many handwritings as there are individuals. In her essay, Pamela M. Lee addresses the phenomenon of illegibility within notes: of what use are notes if they cannot be deciphered at a later time? Lee develops her “semiotics of illegibility” with reference to the extensive archive of notes written by the prominent American art historian Meyer Schapiro. In Lee’s view, the illegibility of Schapiro’s script stands in especially stark contrast to the clarity of his texts. Incorporating psychoanalysis and literary criticism, Lee’s study draws from Schapiro’s own unique approaches to the theory of signs, and in particular from his canonical paper “On Some Problems in the Semiotics of Visual Art: Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs,” which can be traced back to notes, excerpts of which are reproduced in this publication.

Art historian and cultural critic Pamela M. Lee (*1967) is Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

“Consider a fictional multiple integral equation that is a flawed trope and a serious joke in an effort to picture what an intersectional—or intra-actional—theory might look like in Terrapolis. Think of this formalism as the mathematics of sf. Sf is that potent material semiotic sign for the riches of speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, science fact, science fantasy—and, I suggest, string figures.” In her text, Donna Haraway, author of the influential “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), devises the formula for a possible world, Terrapolis, and places it in connection to string figures, which, as pictures of cosmological constellations and creation myths, constitute a popular cultural practice among the Navajo to this day.

Cultural theorist, biologist and feminist Donna Haraway (*1944) is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the Honorary Advisory Committee ...

“Consider a fictional multiple integral equation that is a flawed trope and a serious joke in an effort to picture what an intersectional—or intra-actional—theory might look like in Terrapolis. Think of this formalism as the mathematics of sf. Sf is that potent material semiotic sign for the riches of speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, science fact, science fantasy—and, I suggest, string figures.” In her text, Donna Haraway, author of the influential “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), devises the formula for a possible world, Terrapolis, and places it in connection to string figures, which, as pictures of cosmological constellations and creation myths, constitute a popular cultural practice among the Navajo to this day.

Cultural theorist, biologist and feminist Donna Haraway (*1944) is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the Honorary Advisory Committee of dOCUMENTA (13).

Fear of death and the wish for immortality were central notions in Dalí’s lifetime: his older brother, who was also named Salvador, died just nine months before the artist was born. This particular sensibility became even more prevalent after the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Dalí’s initial plan to have his body frozen after death was replaced by a deep fascination with the sciences, in particular the discovery of the structure of DNA, which he believed to be the central component in our understanding of life. The previously unpublished notes by Dalí reproduced here contain anecdotes about author Stefan Zweig, who helped introduce the artist to Sigmund Freud. Additionally reprinted is an article from Scientific American, a magazine regularly read and commented on with handwritten notes by Dalí. In his introduction, Ignacio Vidal-Folch writes about Dalí’s search for immortality, and different views on the topic from scientists and authors such as Ray Kurzweil, Elias ...

Fear of death and the wish for immortality were central notions in Dalí’s lifetime: his older brother, who was also named Salvador, died just nine months before the artist was born. This particular sensibility became even more prevalent after the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Dalí’s initial plan to have his body frozen after death was replaced by a deep fascination with the sciences, in particular the discovery of the structure of DNA, which he believed to be the central component in our understanding of life. The previously unpublished notes by Dalí reproduced here contain anecdotes about author Stefan Zweig, who helped introduce the artist to Sigmund Freud. Additionally reprinted is an article from Scientific American, a magazine regularly read and commented on with handwritten notes by Dalí. In his introduction, Ignacio Vidal-Folch writes about Dalí’s search for immortality, and different views on the topic from scientists and authors such as Ray Kurzweil, Elias Canetti, and Eugène Ionesco.

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was a Spanish artist.

Ignacio Vidal-Folch (*1956) is a journalist and author living in Barcelona.

Introduction by Joasia Krysa

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron, was a writer who, as a young adult, developed a deep interest in mathematics, in particular in Charles Babbage’s work on the Analytical Engine. This notebook includes a full reproduction of her famous “Note G,” one of several notes that supplemented her translation of a text by Luigi Federico Menebrae about Babbage’s research. Note G contains an algorithm that functions as a software to enable Babbage’s Engine—which did not yet exist—to perform computing processes and is widely regarded as the first computer program. While Note G expresses the author’s doubt about a computer’s capability to develop what we would call “artificial intelligence,” in other places she foresees that computers could go beyond pure calculation. In her thinking, Lovelace “managed to combine scientific rationalism with subjective imagination.” Additionally to Note G, this notebook contains ...

Introduction by Joasia Krysa

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron, was a writer who, as a young adult, developed a deep interest in mathematics, in particular in Charles Babbage’s work on the Analytical Engine. This notebook includes a full reproduction of her famous “Note G,” one of several notes that supplemented her translation of a text by Luigi Federico Menebrae about Babbage’s research. Note G contains an algorithm that functions as a software to enable Babbage’s Engine—which did not yet exist—to perform computing processes and is widely regarded as the first computer program. While Note G expresses the author’s doubt about a computer’s capability to develop what we would call “artificial intelligence,” in other places she foresees that computers could go beyond pure calculation. In her thinking, Lovelace “managed to combine scientific rationalism with subjective imagination.” Additionally to Note G, this notebook contains selected transcripts and reproductions of letters exchanged between her and Babbage, as well as her sonnet “The Rainbow.”

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was an English writer.

Joasia Krysa is a curator, academic and Agent for dOCUMENTA (13).

Introduction by Geoff Cox

In his work David Link generates (apparently) interactive projects, at the interface between art, science, and technology. For LoveLetters_1.0, Link reconstructed a functional replica of one of the earliest programmable computers, the Ferranti Mark I, and an equally early program, invented in 1952 by Christopher Strachey at the University of Manchester. To produce computer-generated love letters, written using a built-in random generator. Anonymously addressed to “Darling Love” or “Jewel Duck,” the letters talk to the reader in a surprisingly human and tender way. In his introduction, Geoff Cox highlights the question, already suggested by the apparently contradictory title of this notebook, Machine Heart, of whether the human capacity for thinking and feeling has been captured by machines.

David Link (*1971) is an artist and media archaeologist; he lives and works in Cologne.

Geoff Cox is currently a Researcher at the Digital Urban Living Research Center, ...

Introduction by Geoff Cox

In his work David Link generates (apparently) interactive projects, at the interface between art, science, and technology. For LoveLetters_1.0, Link reconstructed a functional replica of one of the earliest programmable computers, the Ferranti Mark I, and an equally early program, invented in 1952 by Christopher Strachey at the University of Manchester. To produce computer-generated love letters, written using a built-in random generator. Anonymously addressed to “Darling Love” or “Jewel Duck,” the letters talk to the reader in a surprisingly human and tender way. In his introduction, Geoff Cox highlights the question, already suggested by the apparently contradictory title of this notebook, Machine Heart, of whether the human capacity for thinking and feeling has been captured by machines.

David Link (*1971) is an artist and media archaeologist; he lives and works in Cologne.

Geoff Cox is currently a Researcher at the Digital Urban Living Research Center, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Introduction by Fernando García-Dory

In a lifetime of work with farmers around the world, George Chan, the father of integrated farming, has been searching for a formula that would transform “waste into wealth”. He brought together their ancient knowledge with new technologies and elaborated a theory based on circularity and sustainable recycling where farming can exist with zero input and zero emissions—the Integrated Farming and Waste Management System. For the so-called Dream Farms, a sustainable cycle was developed using material and energy in different stages, such as raising chickens and using their waste as extra nutrients for the plants, effecting an increase of crop and gain. Chan has been a pioneer of our modern take on non-pollution and bio-farming, but unfortunately his revolutionary model comes out of site-specific research and exchanges and thus remains for the most part unknown. This notebook brings together key ideas of this committed thinker in the form of drawings, ...

Introduction by Fernando García-Dory

In a lifetime of work with farmers around the world, George Chan, the father of integrated farming, has been searching for a formula that would transform “waste into wealth”. He brought together their ancient knowledge with new technologies and elaborated a theory based on circularity and sustainable recycling where farming can exist with zero input and zero emissions—the Integrated Farming and Waste Management System. For the so-called Dream Farms, a sustainable cycle was developed using material and energy in different stages, such as raising chickens and using their waste as extra nutrients for the plants, effecting an increase of crop and gain. Chan has been a pioneer of our modern take on non-pollution and bio-farming, but unfortunately his revolutionary model comes out of site-specific research and exchanges and thus remains for the most part unknown. This notebook brings together key ideas of this committed thinker in the form of drawings, diagrams, notes, and photographs, which are introduced by Fernando García-Dory, who has carefully compiled these papers in close exchange with Chan.

George Chan (*1923) is an environmental engineer.

Fernando García-Dory (*1978) is an artist and agro-ecologist living between Madrid, Berlin, and the northern Spanish mountains.

The topic of this notebook by Jill Bennett is life in the anthropocene, the present eon, which is characterized by human activities. Derived from geology, the term anthropocene circumscribes an era that began with the industrialization and spans a vanishingly brief time of 250 years, in which, however, a paradigm change has occurred. Its implications have generated some resistance, uttered, for example, when denying that climate change, a decisive trait of the anthropocene, is a man-made phenomenon. The comprehensive change in our understanding of the world has had effects on how we eat, shop, and move around, but it also offers the potential for inventions in the socio-ecological systems: when ecological thinking begins to influence our ways of working, it may eventually lead to a transdisciplinary revolution. Bennett names examples of transdisciplinary processes from the realm of art, such as Amy Balkin’s work Public Smog (2004–ongoing), which incorporates the earth’s atmosphere. ...

The topic of this notebook by Jill Bennett is life in the anthropocene, the present eon, which is characterized by human activities. Derived from geology, the term anthropocene circumscribes an era that began with the industrialization and spans a vanishingly brief time of 250 years, in which, however, a paradigm change has occurred. Its implications have generated some resistance, uttered, for example, when denying that climate change, a decisive trait of the anthropocene, is a man-made phenomenon. The comprehensive change in our understanding of the world has had effects on how we eat, shop, and move around, but it also offers the potential for inventions in the socio-ecological systems: when ecological thinking begins to influence our ways of working, it may eventually lead to a transdisciplinary revolution. Bennett names examples of transdisciplinary processes from the realm of art, such as Amy Balkin’s work Public Smog (2004–ongoing), which incorporates the earth’s atmosphere.

Jill Bennett is a writer, researcher and cultural critic based at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, Sydney.

This notebook is a homage of the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist to the French author, poet, and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928–2011), who passed away this year. Glissant, one of the most influential figures of the French-speaking Caribbean and a pioneer of postcolonial thinking, called “attention to means of global exchange which do not homogenize culture but produce a difference from which new things can emerge”. Obrist encountered Glissant at the beginning of his curatorial path, following a recommendation by Alighiero Boetti, then through his books, and later in person. In the introduction, Obrist creates a multilayered portrait of the intellectual, laying out some of his key concepts: the creolization of the world, “archipelic thought,” and the museum as archipelago, as well as utopia. These ideas are expressed in a personal tone by Glissant in a selection of title pages of his books with drawings, notations and poetic dedications that are reproduced here in facsimile. ...

This notebook is a homage of the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist to the French author, poet, and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928–2011), who passed away this year. Glissant, one of the most influential figures of the French-speaking Caribbean and a pioneer of postcolonial thinking, called “attention to means of global exchange which do not homogenize culture but produce a difference from which new things can emerge”. Obrist encountered Glissant at the beginning of his curatorial path, following a recommendation by Alighiero Boetti, then through his books, and later in person. In the introduction, Obrist creates a multilayered portrait of the intellectual, laying out some of his key concepts: the creolization of the world, “archipelic thought,” and the museum as archipelago, as well as utopia. These ideas are expressed in a personal tone by Glissant in a selection of title pages of his books with drawings, notations and poetic dedications that are reproduced here in facsimile.

Édouard Glissant (1928–2011) was a French writer, poet, and philosopher.

Curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist (*1968) is Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London.

In times when the exchange with the world largely takes place on the Internet, the search engine Google primarily regulates the parameters and formats of this conversation. For the philosopher and media theoretician Boris Groys, Google thus takes on the traditional role of philosophy and religion. Philosophical precursors for the dissolution of different kinds of discourses, the emancipation of words from grammar and accordingly their equalizing, as Google produces it, span from Plato to Saussure’s structuralism to Derrida’s deconstruction. Another analogy is the twentieth-century avant-garde’s production of word clouds that are freed from their context, in particular the Conceptual art of the 1960s and ’70s. As a result of the radical freeing of words, Groys names “the struggle for a utopian ideal of the free flow of information—the free migration of liberated words through the totality of social space.”

Philosopher, art critic, and media theorist Boris Groys (*1947) ...

In times when the exchange with the world largely takes place on the Internet, the search engine Google primarily regulates the parameters and formats of this conversation. For the philosopher and media theoretician Boris Groys, Google thus takes on the traditional role of philosophy and religion. Philosophical precursors for the dissolution of different kinds of discourses, the emancipation of words from grammar and accordingly their equalizing, as Google produces it, span from Plato to Saussure’s structuralism to Derrida’s deconstruction. Another analogy is the twentieth-century avant-garde’s production of word clouds that are freed from their context, in particular the Conceptual art of the 1960s and ’70s. As a result of the radical freeing of words, Groys names “the struggle for a utopian ideal of the free flow of information—the free migration of liberated words through the totality of social space.”

Philosopher, art critic, and media theorist Boris Groys (*1947) is Global Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University

Costa Vece’s recent publication, “Dark Days” is a multifaceted artist’s book, which is designed as an independent work. Three texts on various aspects of the work complement the images. The publication was released for his solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Solothurn Veces.
“Dark Days” brings together parts of the private picture archive of Costa Vece. The collection of photos, pictures from newspapers, magazines and the Internet, reproductions of historical and contemporary works of art and much more offer insight into the cosmos of Vece’s imagery. The study materials from this private collection of the artist that has emerged from his extensive research on the artistic work were arranged for the publication of a series of forty double-sided boards. Interspersed between the found footage are documentary photographs of artistic works and the relevant illustrations to the texts. The composition of the frames makes thematic overlays of Costa ...

Costa Vece’s recent publication, “Dark Days” is a multifaceted artist’s book, which is designed as an independent work. Three texts on various aspects of the work complement the images. The publication was released for his solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Solothurn Veces.
“Dark Days” brings together parts of the private picture archive of Costa Vece. The collection of photos, pictures from newspapers, magazines and the Internet, reproductions of historical and contemporary works of art and much more offer insight into the cosmos of Vece’s imagery. The study materials from this private collection of the artist that has emerged from his extensive research on the artistic work were arranged for the publication of a series of forty double-sided boards. Interspersed between the found footage are documentary photographs of artistic works and the relevant illustrations to the texts. The composition of the frames makes thematic overlays of Costa Vece’s thinking and creative career.

Essays by Kathleen Bühler, Rayelle Niemann, Sabine Rusterholz.