Born in Flames, the publication, is an illustrated transcript of Lizzie Borden’s 1983 film ‘Born in Flames’, edited and designed by Kaisa Lassinaro. It includes an interview with Borden conducted in Los Angeles by Lassinaro, as well as the lyrics of Undercover Nation by The Bloods and Born in Flames by Red Crayola, kindly supplied by Adele Bertei and Mayo Thompson.

‘Born in Flames poses the question of whether oppression against women will be eliminated under any kind of social system. […] It is a fantasy presenting a group of women who, confronted with the very “ordinary” oppression women have been experiencing for decades, refuse to take it any longer and become armed fighters against the government. Their position is that oppression against women is not eliminated automatically with “socialism” — not only do political values have to change, cultural values must change and become embedded in practice.’

— Lizzie Borden in Heresies #16, 1983

In the spirit of Borden’s film, the publication was collectively funded by the following individuals and institutions:

Stuart Bailey, Heather Bradley, Eleanor Brown, Geoffrey Brusatto, Culturgest, Wayne Daly, Chris Evans, Beatrice Gibson, Nick Gordon, The Hawthorne Archive, Erna Hecey, Onno Hesselink, Will Holder, Jeff Khonsary, Koenig Books, Uriel Orlow, Falke Pisano, Philomene Pirecki, PrintRoom: Karin de Jong, Ewoud van Rijn, Pro QM, David Reinfurt, Jane Rolo, Catherine de Smet, Benjamin Thorel, Giulia Vallicelli, and Julia Zay.

Adolfo Doring’s Nomenclature is deceptively layered with meaning and contexts absorbent from his work in film. Sublime and poetic, Nomenclature is pictorial prose, a visual soliloquy, an imagistic dialogue of the human figure in a kind of call and response with a plethora of variegated environments including urban space as well as the natural world. Doring’s still photography is analogous to a single frame of a film; where he decides to point his camera, whether indoors or outdoors, is akin to a film’s locale; and the placement of images mapped within Nomenclature is as much a directorial decision as it is of editing.

— Raul Zamudio

Munich — Paris 23
November — 14 December 1974

In the winter of 1974, filmmaker Werner Herzog made a three week solo journey from Munich to Paris on foot. He believed it was the only way his close friend, film historian Lotte Eisner, would survive a horrible sickness that had overtaken her. During this monumental odyssey through a seemingly endless blizzard, Herzog documented everything he saw and felt with intense sincerity. This diary is dotted with a pastiche of rants about the extreme cold and utter loneliness, notes on Herzog’s films and travels, poetic descriptions of the snowy countryside, and personal philosophizing. What is most remarkable is that the reading of the book is in continuity with the experience of watching his films; it’s as if, through this walk, we witness the process in which images are born. Although he received a literary award for it, this introspective masterpiece has lingered out of print since 1979. Beautifully designed and emotionally impressive, Of Walking in Ice is the first in a color-coded series of remarkable yet long-forgotten titles being republished by Free Association.

The texts in this book relate to Wilhelm Hein’s eponymous film project, which he has been working on since 1989. The film now comprises about 15 hours of 16mm film, in black-and-white and color. “Wilhelm Hein demands that the viewer of his film be free of any preconceived idea of cinema,” writes critic Cecile Chich in the first of two excellent essays on this epic work-in-progress. The book also includes black and white photos, a lengthy interview with the German auteur and a filmography. Includes texts by Cécile Chich and Marc Siegel, an interview with Wilhelm Hein and photographs by Annette Frick.

Spike Jonze’s new half-hour short film titled I’m Here is a robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity. The movie is set in contemporary Los Angeles, where life moves at a seemingly regular pace with the exception of a certain amount of robot residents who live among the population. A male robot librarian lives a solitary and methodical life — devoid of creativity, joy and passion — until he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.

Formed in 1994, the Bernadette Corporation is a creative collective based in New York and Europe and organized around revolving memberships and associations. Its artistic output has ranged from fashion to film and literature, training videos, photography, etc., consistently insisting on the idea that the re-imagined format should inform the subject and give shape to its output. Whereas the first book released by BC was reportedly written by 150 people, in an “exquisite corpse” format, the second “novel,” entitled Be Corpse, is described as “a screenplay that cannot be a film” or “a film that can only be on paper.” A drama in three acts, the text seeks to make the gap between our primordial and contemporary selves collapse on itself, revealing an instinctless body and the brain manifest as the over-stimulated observer. Above all, Be Corpse should be received as the continuation of BC’s indirect, fiercely independent critique of our late capitalist/globalized world.

Appendix Appendix is conceived as the sequel to Ryan Gander and Stuart Bailey’s 2003 book “Appendix.” Like its predecessor, it attempts “a translation of practice” based on Ryan Gander’s recent body of work. Neither straight
documentation, nor an “artist’s book,” it pushes for a third way, editing and presenting each individual piece of work in a manner appropriate to its specific nature. In the years since “Appendix,” Gander’s work has increasingly encompassed sound and the moving image in addition to the earlier objects and installations. This shift will directly affect the form of Appendix Appendix.

Born in 1976, Ryan Gander lives and works in London and Amsterdam. His photographs, films, installations and sculptures draw on multiple layers of facts and fiction. He has exhibited in the USA and throughout England and Europe.

The English-born Stuart Bailey (*1973) has forged a formidible creative base for himself in Amsterdam where he has benefited greatly from Dutch design tradition. Since his arrival in the Netherlands, he has become a steady contributor to the art and design culture as a writer, critic, editor, and graphic designer.

This publication is part of the series of artists projects edited by Christoph Keller. Personally selected by Keller, for Textfield, as one of his top five from the series.

By now, every bona fide Blackberry or iPhone owner probably knows that the abbreviations OMG, BFF, and LOL stand for “oh my God,” “best friends forever,” and “laughing out loud” in the world of Short Message Service (SMS), which has come to be known as texting.

Based on a two-year study of the behavior of an actual American teenage girl, the animation is part of a larger project called The Girl Studies that dissects the desires and social anxieties of our era. The animation is meant to perform as a viable cartoon for young girls, while simultaneously providing a platform from which viewers can critique them. White’s works in photography, film, and more recently animation, often offer fictitious narratives to help us understand and evaluate the underlying realities of contemporary life.

This particular project features Tara and Blakey, two American-girl cartoon characters with pink-glitter accessories, trendy clothing, and commercial desires. These archetypes of the American teen are used to examine their representation from different angles. Set in three looping scenes, OMG BFF LOL contains the cartoon’s capitalist manifesto, “having is so much better than wanting,” discussed by the girls in a crystal shopping mall scene. The second and third scenes, set in a bedroom and bathroom, open the door to the interior loneliness and isolation of the two main characters, as viewers observe them surfing TV channels and radio stations, snacking, posing in front of a full length mirror, and crying, as a digital clock marks the passage of time.

White wrote and directed OMG BFF LOL, working in collaboration with Chuck Gammage studios, a Canadian animation house, to create the intentionally dated quality of the scenes. He explains, “The three segments loop on a now obsolete 4:3 Sony Trinitron monitor, which conjures the television as both box and broadcast mechanism.”

—Mónica Ramírez-Montagut

* A free download (MP3) of the teen-dance remix of We Love to Shop is available here.

Excerpt from Charlie White’s cartoon OMG BFF LOL (Mall) from his project The Girl Studies, 2008. (Run Time: 3 min., 16 sec.)