Books and Magazines


Published by Blank Forms, 288 pgs, 20 × 13.5 cm, Softcover, 2021, 9781953691040In Partners, writer, librarian, and teacher Stephen Housewright paints an intimate portrait of a lifetime spent with Jerry Hunt (1943–1993), a Texas-born artist and musician with an astonishing mind and a mystifying practice. Hunt was a singular figure in the world of new music, and one of the most radically unorthodox artists of his generation. His remarkable yet underknown work incorporated motion-and sensor-activated technologies, readymade props, eccentric choreographies, and sixteenth-century astrology into performance and composition. While he orbited avant-garde worlds in the United States and Europe, his personal life, spent largely on a ranch in rural Texas, remained elusive. In this memoir-cum-biography, Housewright narrates a life spent together, beginning in high school as a closeted couple in East Texas and ending with Hunt’s battle with cancer and his eventual suicide in 1993, the subject of one of his most harrowing works on video, How to Kill Yourself Using the Inhalation of Carbon Monoxide (1993). Including private correspondence with, and thrilling anecdotes about, Hunt’s friends, family, and art world peers, Partners is an essential introduction to Jerry Hunt, and one that only Housewright could share. Self-published online in 1995, and now printed for the first time by Blank Forms Editions with a new introduction by Hunt’s close collaborator Karen Finley, Partners is the first installment of Blank Forms’s extensive program dedicated to Jerry Hunt. This program includes the first-ever exhibition surveying the artist’s career, Jerry Hunt: Transmissions from the Pleroma, opening at Blank Forms in early 2022; a deluxe LP boxed set and reader; the first vinyl pressing of Hunt’s final record, Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams (1992); and the special anthology Blank Forms 08: Transmissions from the Pleroma.

Stephen Housewright – Partners

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Published: Primary Information 280 pages 8.25 x 10.25 inches Paperback w/flexi disc 22 Color and 599 B&W; images Edition of 2500 Second Printing March 2019 ISBN: 9780991558599 — Managing Editor: James Hoff Managing Designer: Rick MyersBroken Music is an essential compendium for records created by visual artists. The publication was edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier and originally published in 1989 by DAAD. Broken Music focuses on recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations made by thousands of artists between WWII and 1989. It also includes essays by both editors as well as Theodor W. Adorno, René Block, Jean Dubuffet, Milan Knizak, László Moholy-Nagy, Christiane Seiffert, and Hans Rudolf Zeller, as well as a flexi disc of the Arditti Quartet performing Knizak’s “Broken Music.” The centerpiece of the publication is a nearly 200-page bibliography of artists’ records. Works chosen for the publication revolved around four criteria: (1) record covers created as original work by visual artists; (2) record or sound-producing objects (multiples/editions/sculptures); (3) books and publications that contain a record or recorded-media object; and (4) records or recorded media that have sound by visual artists. Artists documented in the volume include Vito Acconci, albrecht/d., Laurie Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Karel Appel, Arman, Hans Arp, Antonin Artaud, John Baldessari, Hugo Ball, Claus van Bebber, John Bender, Harry Bertoia, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Claus Böhmler, Christian Boltanski, KP Brehmer, William Burroughs, John Cage, Henri Chopin, Henning Christiansen, Jean Cocteau, William Copley, Philip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Fischli and Weiss, R. Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Jack Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Bernard Heidsieck, Holger Hiller, Richard Huelsenbeck, Isidore Isou, Marcel Janco, Servie Janssen, Jasper Johns, Joe Jones, Thomas Kapielski, Allan Kaprow, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Cheri Knight, Milan Knizak, Richard Kriesche, Christina Kubisch, Laibach, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Annea Lockwood, Paul McCarthy, Meredith Monk, Josef Felix Müller, Piotr Nathan, Hermann Nitsch, Albert Oehlen, Frank O’Hara, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, A.R. Penck, Tom Phillips, Robert Rauschenberg, The Red Crayola, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Gerhard Richter, Jim Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Robert Rutman, Sarkis, Thomas Schmit, Conrad Schnitzler, Kurt Schwitters, Selten Gehörte Musik, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Strafe für Rebellion, Jean Tinguely, Moniek Toebosch, Tristan Tzara, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, Emmett Walsh, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, and Lawrence Weiner. Ursula Block is a curator living in Berlin, Germany. From 1981 until 2014, she ran gelbe Musik, a gallery and record shop in Berlin that featured work by artists at the crossroads between music and art. Michael Glasmeier is a professor, writer, and editor living in Berlin, Germany. Since the early 1980s, he has curated dozens of shows that explore the intersection between the visual arts, music, film, and language.

Broken Music

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"This highly entertaining account of the voyage zips along in an eternally breathless present tense, bristling with exclamations such as "Crazy!" and "Wow!" and driven by an infectiously child-like and wide-eyed enthusiasm that will be instantly recognisable to anyone who's ever seen The Ex ricocheting around the stage like big-booted pinballs." - Daniel Spicer, The Wire'IMPROVISING’ is the story of an incredible journey by Emma Fischer (painter, graphic designer, ceramist) and Terrie Hessels (guitar player in The Ex) through 21 countries in Africa. They travelled for a year in an old Land Rover. Not as tourists, but as travellers with an open mind and free attitude, dealing with countless unexpected, unpredictable, sometimes risky, but mainly fascinating and fantastic situations.Parking somewhere to sleep, relax and eat, only to be found by locals with whom they interacted, joked and laughed, ate together, listened to music, shared water, improvised. They socialised with Tuareg, Pygmy and Maasai people, with groups of kids, village elders and market women. They bought cassettes from Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed, participated in a Muslim wedding, struggled through the jungle with locals James, Magliore and Daniel and met many more amazing, very different people.Sometimes they ended up in impossible places and situations: the remote desert, impenetrable jungles with vanished roads, feeble bridges and rusty railways. They encountered wild elephants and hippos and dealt with corrupt customs, military with guns, the French woodcutters mafia and even bumped into the president of the Congo. They witnessed the bizarre leftovers of the colonial era, the terrible tourist industry and the unease of people from ‘outside’, at embassies, companies, even churches and aid organisations. With of course some remarkable exceptions.The journey happened exactly 25 years ago, so besides the personal dealing and wheeling, this book also gives a unique glimpse of that time. The stories come from the daily notes Emma and Terrie wrote in their diary. They didn’t take many photos, because they didn’t want to interrupt the personal interaction, but the ones in the book, as well as Emma’s drawings, are significantly striking. The polaroids had quite a social function as well: they were often shared with the person in the picture.Terrie and Emma had to improvise a lot to accomplish the trip. But the people all over Africa improvise their whole daily lives, staying positive, amazed and open-minded, despite all the problems, setbacks and uncertainties. And no doubt they’re good at it. An inspiring example.This book is all about the year-long ‘improvising’ journey, in the middle of ‘improvising’ people.

Emma Fischer and Terrie Hessels – Improvising: A One​-​Year Journey Around Africa Photobook

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‍POSITIONEN – Texte zur aktuellen Musik presents and goes into dialogue with contemporary music and cultural practices both in the German-speaking area and internationally. The journal was founded by Gisela Nauck and Armin Köhler in former East Germany in 1988 and presents thematically oriented issues with essays, portraits, interviews, and specials as well as a variety of “Positionen” (“Positions”): Comments on contemporary discourses in recordings, books, festivals, concerts, exhibitions as well as musical aspects in e.g. the visual arts, fashion, and performance. The Berlin-based cultural journal is published four times a year. In addition, articles and reviews are published online, too. POSITIONEN also has a digital archive that makes older contributions available to several academic and public libraries. The international perspective is also emphasized through the publication of international articles that are translated into German. POSITIONEN strives to strengthen critique and discourse around new music and to connect the areas of musicology and cultural journalism. Intending to encourage and foster future generations of writers, POSITIONEN regularly organizes workshops in critical writing in collaboration with universities and festivals.Since 2019 POSITIONEN has been published and edited by Andreas Engström and Bastian Zimmermann, assisted by a Berlin-based Creative Crowd as well as several international correspondents. --- Christian Grüny   Wieso jetzt auch noch wir? Genoël von Lilienstern   Yaanga — Los Angeles Andreas Karl   Wider die Einbahnstraße — Identitäten im jüngsten chinesisch geprägten Komponieren Jay Arms   »Made in the USA« — Gamelan Son of Lion und die amerikanische experimentelle Musik Nico Daleman   The shape of Cumbia to come — Neo-Macondismo oder kolumbianische Avantgarde? Jessie Cox   Das Drumset als Werkzeug Kreolisierter Welten Lara Scherrieble   Über Wut und Liebe in the Wake FASHION-SPECIAL Die exklusive Positionen-Fachbekleidungsedition von Heinz Maison Thomas Models: Yana Thönnes & Ludwig Abraham, Fotos: Robin Thomas POSITIONEN Laurie Anderson: Spending the War Without You 1–3; Alvin Lucier: I am sitting in a Room / Lucier & Bach: Sitting in a Room; Dorrit Bauerecker One Woman Band; Helmut Lachenmann – My Way; Malte Pelleter ›Futurhythmaschinen‹; Alex Paxton: Music for Bosch People; Acht Brücken; Klangwerkstatt Online Festival; Morphine Records; Halim El-Dabh / MaerzMusik Festival für Zeitfragen; Smerz: Believer; Biliana Voutchkova: Under the Veil of Consciousness; Magical Soup; Sisters with Transistors: Lisa Rovner; Foodman: Yasuragi Land; Virtuelle Kunstausübung?: Das Internet als Bühne; Klangbrücken 2021 / Musique spectrale; Ten Cities. Clubbing in Nairobi…; Konstantia Gourzi: Anájikon & Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt; Trickster Orchestra/Ensemble Extrakte; Adam Neely & Ben Levin: How I Loved My Cat; Wir bringen die Blase zum Platzen!

Positionen #128

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POSITIONEN – Texte zur aktuellen Musik presents and goes into dialogue with contemporary music and cultural practices both in the German-speaking area and internationally. The journal was founded by Gisela Nauck and Armin Köhler in former East Germany in 1988 and presents thematically oriented issues with essays, portraits, interviews, and specials as well as a variety of “Positionen” (“Positions”): Comments on contemporary discourses in recordings, books, festivals, concerts, exhibitions as well as musical aspects in e.g. the visual arts, fashion, and performance. The Berlin-based cultural journal is published four times a year. In addition, articles and reviews are published online, too. POSITIONEN also has a digital archive that makes older contributions available to several academic and public libraries. The international perspective is also emphasized through the publication of international articles that are translated into German. POSITIONEN strives to strengthen critique and discourse around new music and to connect the areas of musicology and cultural journalism. Intending to encourage and foster future generations of writers, POSITIONEN regularly organizes workshops in critical writing in collaboration with universities and festivals.Since 2019 POSITIONEN has been published and edited by Andreas Engström and Bastian Zimmermann, assisted by a Berlin-based Creative Crowd as well as several international correspondents. --- Margarethe Maierhofer-Lischka   ## Quo Vadis Netzmusik? Made in the DDR – Beobachtungen und Reflektionen: Jakob Ullmann, Michael von Hintzenstern, Frank Kämpfer, Susanne Stelzenbach, Ralf Hoyer, Ellen Hünigen, Ekkehard Klemm, Burkhard Glaetzner Raphael Jacobs   Wir beginnen spielerisch mitzuschreiben – Ein Online-Tagebuch zu den Lockdown-Jams der Bastard Assignments Susanne Westenfelder   Tonal ist, was du draus machst – Wie man in atonaler Musik die Subdominante findet Juliane Schwarz-Bierschenk   Einfach BOOM gemacht – Musikalische Zeitgenoss*innen in Chemnitz Anna Schürmer   Was archiviert wird – ist vergangen? Die Musik(geschichte) der DDR in Dokumenten, Aufzeichnungen und Nachlässen SPECIAL Anna Schürmer   ABC-DDR – Ein enzyklopädisches Glossar POSITIONEN --- 1988 wurde dieses Heft von Gisela Nauck und Armin Köhler in Leipzig gegründet. Es wird erzählt, dass – beide im Edition Peters-Verlag arbeitend – noch etwas Papier einer anderen Produktion übrig war. Die Wende kam schon bald und das Heft ging mit Gisela Nauck in die Wiedervereinigungsjahre nach Berlin. Die Positionen standen seither auch immer für ein Insistieren auf die Werke von Komponierenden aus der ehemaligen DDR. Zusammen mit Anna Schürmer – jüngst an die Uni Halle als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin an die Brückenprofessur ›Musik und Medien‹ berufen – haben wir einen Schwerpunkt konzipiert, in dem wir explizit das reiche Erbe der Positionen aufgreifen. Schürmer selbst hat das diesmalige Special verfasst: Ein etwas augenzwinkerndes Glossar ABC-DDR zu den gesellschaftlichen wie musikalischen Begrifflichkeiten jener Zeit. War es zu Beginn die Idee der Ausgabe, der Herkunft der Positionen zu huldigen und ein Gefühl für die Zeit und die Ästhetiken an die jüngere Leser*innengeneration weiterzugeben, haben sich neben einer kulturpolitischen Perspektive nach und nach auch Fragestellungen herauskristallisiert, die allgemeiner das Erinnern befragen – die »DDR« als ein bezeichnendes Beispiel, als ein Sprungbrett zu Fragestellungen der zeitgenössischen Kulturgeschichte. Was wir wollen ist weder Ostalgie noch ein naives Wiederentdecken – sondern ein Wiedererkennen. Wenige Musikszenen werden so übersehen, wie die im Osten Deutschlands. Kulturpolitisch ist das katastrophal, kunstgeschichtlich problematisch. Ersteres wird durch die im Heft verstreuten Beobachtungen von Ereignissen und Reflektionen zu Ästhetiken einiger Protagonist*innen der »mittleren Generation« bestätigt. Ellen Hünigen formuliert hier, dass »nach der Wende […] ein seltsames Loch in Wahrnehmung und Interesse bei Veranstaltern, Festivals, Radiosendern, Redakteuren, Ensembles, Dirigenten etc. [entstand]«. Auch historisch bestätigt sich dies in Schürmers Interview mit Barbara Wiermann und Kathrin Bircher von der Musikabteilung der Sächsischen Landesbibliothek in Dresden. Sie sagen, dass »mit der Generation geht das Wissen um eine andere deutsche Musikkultur unter; es fehlen dann Menschen mit eigenen Erfahrungen in diesem anders organisierten und gestalteten Musikleben.« Was war, lebt aber doch weiter – die Vergangenheit greift immer in die Gegenwart ein. Beispiel dafür ist das Stadtporträt: Die Ethnologin Juliane Schwarz-Bierschenk schaut auf die Entwicklungen in Karl-Marx- Stadt, heute Chemnitz, die schon lange als Subkulturmusikstadt bekannt ist und nun als Kulturhauptstadt 2025 ausgerufen wurde. Flankiert wird dieses Porträt von den Karl-Marx-Selfies des Chemnitzer Künstlers Andrzej Steinbach. Dank geht auch an die Künstlerin Henrike Naumann, die uns einige Ansichten ihrer idiomatischen Installationen, auch fürs Cover, zur Verfügung stellt! Wir wünschen also viel Spaß und Anregung bei der Lektüre und Sichtung des Hefts 127! Bastian Zimmermann, Anna Schürmer & Andreas Engström

Positionen #127

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Published:Mille Plateaux published in March 2020 English edition 19 x 27 cm (softcover) 268 pages (b/w ill.)   ISBN : 978-3-00-064816-8 EAN : 9783000648168The ultra-blackness manifesto: a Deleuzian reading of the philosophical and socio-political stakes of the current electronic music scene (publication marking the reactivation of the influential label Mille Plateaux, with texts by an ensemble of international musicians, artists and theorists: Frédéric Neyrat, Achim Szepanski, Holger Schulze, Gerriet K. Sharma, Bernd Herzogenrath, Corry Shores, Marcus Schmickler, Thomas Brinkmann, Thomas Köner...).   Ultrablack of Music speculates on the manifold ways in which the objective, inhuman soundworlds, which roar underneath humans' sensological apparatus, pervade and smoothly colonize our humanoid-alien, affective and cognitive capacities—and how to construct ways out of the mess of the Master Rhythms of Sonic Thanaticist Capital and its stratagems of annihilation and pulpification. Speculative rhythm productions drive the mathematical ope-rationality and its decisional self-amputations to the edge and create the missing corporeality that rewires our affective capacities and inhibitions by un-mooring, alienating/de-realizing our relations to the killing abstractions (reductive Binarism, identitism/autism), the techgnostical mindset and its mystifications. Ultrablackened music confronts and pushes us also into the experimentation with this nameless in-between, in which new temporalities can emerge whose winding paths and outcomes can neither be predicted nor guaranteed. Its cruel love vigorously informed and fueled by the hate in ending this world, as we know and sonically experience it.   ---   Edited by Achim Szepanski. Texts by Jan Heintz, Frédéric Neyrat, Achim Szepanski, Holger Schulze, Zafer Aracagök, Shintaro Miyazaki, Gerriet K. Sharma, Txgen Meyer, Taylor Adkins & Joseph Weissman, Bernd Herzogenrath, Corry Shores & Melike Başak Yalçin, Algorithmic Committee, Jose Rosales, Stefan Paulus, Marcus Schmickler & Julian Rohrhuber, Thomas Brinkmann, Thomas Köner, Alessio Kolioulis, Benjamin Noys, Bill B. Wintermute.   Graphic design: Kerstin Davies.   ---   Mille Plateaux, 2020

Ultrablack of Music

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