11.5" x 15" 160 pages Hardcover Full Color Offset Edition of 100
'By far one of the most visually striking and thought provoking books I've encountered in quite some time. Incredibly beautiful and orginal. 'The Future' has arrived and its everything we hoped for... right?' - Ross
Artist's Statement:
The Neuron Mirror is a human/AI collaborative partnership; an intensive process of inspiration, iteration, curation, finesse and judgement; a collection of images conserved while thousands of others were discarded. Yet the question continues to be asked: who or what is the artist?
Salvatore Chiarella has written that it is not technology alone that makes an artwork, but rather the totality of artistic theory, approach, and realisation. Al image generation is a Copernican revolution in the artistic field, but the technology does not replace human creativity. The spread of photography at the end of the 19th century with the advent of technology able to reproduce reality (at least as it was defined at the time), led to similar debates about its status as an art form and the possibility that it might supplant painting. The outcome, however, was photography's gradual acceptance and simultaneously the flowering of historical avant-gardes such as Impressionism, Futurism, Surrealism and Expressionism. There is every reason to anticipate similar developments in the context of art in this century.
There are other relevant implications for philosophical aesthetics, especially the discussions about the nature of creativity and authorship. The generation of art by Als calls into question the uniqueness of individual creativity and artistic imagination in an unprecedented way, questions we will elaborate on in later chapters. Al technology can be considered as an extension of human potentialities through the externalization of mental processes in the form of a distributed non-corporeal mind. Mark Coeckelbergh, however, argues that existing notions such as tool, extension, and (quasi) Other are insufficient to conceptualize the use of this technology, and proposes instead to investigate what happens as processes and performances out of which artistic subjects, objects, and roles emerge. The old categories leave in place the human/machine separation and opposition. The discussion has been about how humans and Al relate in this context, yet the focus was on the ontological and artistic status of the Al which implicitly or explicitly was compared to that of the human. He suggests turning this around, no longer taking the relationship as fixed and given, but rather bringing the relation and the process itself to the forefront of the analysis?
The process can perhaps be better viewed as 'poietic performances' involving humans and non-humans potentially leading to the emergence of new artistic (quasi)subjects and roles in the process. For example: Al image generators often introduce exquisite detail in a quite unexpected way. They also currently confuse ground and subject if the human prompter does not take extraordinary measures to avoid the ambiguity. Yet the results, which are evident in many images herein, are often stunning. This is only an 'error when conceived in terms of mirroring animal visual perception - a survival mechanism, not an artistic one. It is likely that developers will attempt to 'correct' such artefacts in subsequent versions, thereby betraying an anthropic bias towards representation within the larger project of artificial general intelligence.
The Neuron Mirror is a 3-way performance of human/Al/audience all embedded in a dynamic process which includes the role of the artist, the technology, and the viewers, philosophers and critics who ascribe meaning and value to the work, entangling the human prompter/curator and the Al into the 'Artist'. In Karen Barad's terms, what happens can be understood as dialogue, intra-action and dance between the performances of humans and the performances of Al. These are in turn embedded in extensive material and narrative contexts in which they are immanent, by which they are shaped, and to what meaning they contribute.
The final creative output may go beyond the boundaries of expectation and fulfil the requirement of and originality. These are new starting points for an artistic re-evaluation of what we mean by intelligence and creativity.
8.5" x 11" 184 pages Softcover (Two color screenprinted with flaps) Digital Press (B&W / Full Color on construction paper) Hand sewn Edition of 175
"Hands and Feet and Their Supportsrearranges dispositions and raises expectations. Tastefully rich and beautifully presented; Borruso's critical eye and thoughtful attention reaches yet another new height. This ones a keeper. Bravo!' - Ross
Description via Visible Publications:
Some fully formed, others in a state of becoming, hands and feet and their supports. Cast and recast, copied and recopied, rubber gloves, ur-feet, the feet of apes. Fragments that represent a whole, these outermost extremities can stand in for humans. The hands and feet of ancient ancestors, present selves, future monuments.
The supports extend us. Stands on stands, feet on tables, feet on shelves. A support can be ideological, structural, architectural. A support can be a matrix used to display objects in an exhibition. And sometimes supports are simply clothes on skin, or shoes on feet.
Hands and Feet and Their Supports is the result of six years of collecting and assembling images related to a show of the same name that happened in 2018 at Cloaca Projects in San Francisco. The book consists of reference images, found photographs, scans, magazine clippings, .jpgs, installation documentation, and collages organized around a strict but invisible supporting grid. The pages were printed on a digital press, and the collating, sewn binding, and screen printed covers were all done by hand one book at a time.
House Of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse (Signed by Author)
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Hardcover: 10" x 8.5" Paperback: 9" x 7.5" 448 pages Published by FAB Press ISBN: 9781913051211 (Hardcover) ISBN: 9781913051341 (Paperback)
House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and examination of female madness, both onscreen and off.
Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart - 'the eccentric' - the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.
Named after the U.S.-retitling of Carlos Aured's Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, House Of Psychotic Women is an examination of these characters through a daringly personal autobiographical lens.
This sharply-designed book, including a 48-page full-colour section, is packed with 680 rare stills, posters, pressbooks and artwork throughout, that combine with family photos and artifacts to form a titillating sensory overload, with a filmography that traverses the acclaimed and the obscure in equal measure. Films covered include The Entity, The Corruption of Chris Miller, Singapore Sling, 3 Women, Toys Are Not for Children, Repulsion, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The Haunting of Julia, Secret Ceremony, Cutting Moments, Out of the Blue, Mademoiselle, The Piano Teacher, Possession, Antichrist and hundreds more!
6 3/4" x 9 1/2" 144 pages Paperback B&W Published by Korm Plastics
‘America’s Greatest Noise’ tells the story of Ron Lessard, owner of RRRecords, a record store in Lowell, Massachusetts and, from 1986 to 2009, a record label, releasing the albums of Blackhouse, F/i, PGR, the first Merzbow LP outside Japan and many more, regional compilations, three widely acclaimed lock groove records and a series of anti-records, records with no music but a more conceptual and visual edge. RRRecords is also responsible for the RRRecycled Music series, which has over 300 releases on re-purposed cassettes.
Ron Lessard played music with his group Due Process and solo as Emil Beaulieau. Up until his retirement from the noise scene in 2006, he played many concerts and released a string of cassettes, LPs, and CDs. During his concerts, Lessard dressed up like a businessman and used a four-armed turntable, dubbed the Minutoli, and his performances were comical.
In this book, he tells for the first time his story in music about the highs and lows of running a label and a record store, weird projects, unfinished projects, encounters with other musicians, being on the road, and much more. Also included are two appendices: one with interviews from the past (fanzines and websites) and a chapter from Michael Tau’s ‘Extreme Music’ about the anti-records released by RRRecords.
Images used were sourced from flyers, invitations and fanzines. Introduction by Dominick Fernow (Prurient, Hospital Productions)
The first 1000 copies come with an anti-flexi, cutting up a conversation about anti-records between Ron Lessard and the author of the book, Frans de Waard. Cut up by Howard Stelzer. You may use this flexi as a bookmark.Howard Stelzer. You may use this flexi as a bookmark.
6 3/4" x 9 1/2" 425 pages Paperback B&W Published by Korm Plastics
Book containing all six issues of the Neumusik fanzine which David Elliott edited between 1979-82 while at university. The ‘zine focussed on European, electronic and experimental music which had come out of krautrock, French progressive rock and the more esoteric side of British post-punk. David travelled extensively meeting musicians in Germany and France, and for a year was based in Strasbourg. Interviews and articles range from Conrad Schnitzler and Richard Pinhas to Florian Fricke and Chris Carter. Most issues were 60-80 pages long so, together with new text and photos, this compendium weighs in at a chunky 425 pages. It also touches on the parallel YHR label.
Bleeding Skull! A 1990s Trash-Horror Odyssey by Ziemba, Choi, and Carlson
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8" x 10" 268 pages Softcover Full Color Offset 2021 First Edition ISBN: 9781683961864 Published by Fantagraphics
(This is a preowned book in fine condition. It has been cleaned, backed, and shrinkwrapped. There is small wear on the bottom of the spine but is in great shape.)
Description via Fantagraphics:
Shapeshifting Hare Krishna demons who crash a BBQ, Mexican Freddy Kruegers, and two dinosaurs that dump body parts into a tiny swimming pool — brought to you by the maniacs behind Bleeding Skull!: A 1980s Trash-Horror Odyssey and Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film!
A celebration of the most obscure, bizarre, and brain-busting movies ever made, this film guide features 250 in-depth reviews that have escaped the radar of people with taste and the tolerance of critics -- Gorgasm! I Was a Teenage Serial Killer! Satan Claus! Die Hard Dracula! Curated by the enthusiastic minds behind BleedingSkull.com, this book gets deep into gutter-level, no-budget horror, from shot-on-VHS revelations (Eyes of the Werewolf) to forgotten outsider art hallucinations (Alien Beasts). Jam-packed with rare photographs, advertisements, and VHS sleeves (most of which have never been seen before), Bleeding Skull is an edifying, laugh-out-loud guide to the dusty inventory of the greatest video store that never existed.
