On Acid: A Field Guide to Altered States

William Rauscher and John Moeller, On Acid

William Rauscher and John Moeller, On Acid
A Field Guide to Altered States
Softcover, 100 pp., offset 4/3, 200 x 265 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-615-53398-8
Published by CCC

$15.00 ·

On Acid presents a radically subjective re-edit of the history of drug experience, following the emergence of drugs as a technology and modernity’s conflicted obsessions with altered states. Tracing a path beginning with philosopher Benjamin Blood’s 1874 pamphlet ‘The Anesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy’ which declares the existence of a ‘majesty and supremacy unspeakable’ observable only after being dosed by nitrous oxide, On Acid assembles texts and images that draw a line connecting archival works by William James, Antonin Artaud, Timothy Leary, and various modernist explorers, to the practice of contemporary artists such as Rodney Graham, Francis Alÿs, Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe. Removed from the familiar cultural contexts of Haight-Ashbury and Grateful Dead psychedelia, On Acid is in itself an experimental program, a recursive acidic process that mirrors the deconstructive relations to counterculture cultivated in contemporary art. The book concludes with a series of new conversations with Freeman and Lowe, Hamilton Morris and Arik Roper.

TEXTS
Francis Alys, Antonin Artaud, Benjamin Blood, Philip K. Dick, Rodney Graham, Brion Gysin, Dr. Albert Hofmann, Jim Hogshire, Aldous Huxley, International Federation for Internal Freedom, William James, Timothy Leary, Marcia Moore, William Rauscher, Alan Watts.

IMAGES
Brian Aldiss, Francis Alys, Carol Bove, Syd Barrett, Mathieu Briand, Krystle Cole, Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Rodney Graham, Brion Gysin, Carsten Holler, Henri Michaux, John Moeller, Arik Roper, Sandoz Laboratories, Ettore Sottsass, Klaus Weber.

INTERVIEWS
Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman, Hamilton Morris, Arik Roper.

William Rauscher and John Moeller, On Acid

William Rauscher and John Moeller, On Acid

William Rauscher and John Moeller, On Acid

William Rauscher and John Moeller, On Acid

Utopics: Systems and Landmarks

Simon Lamunière, Utopics: Systems and Landmarks

Simon Lamunière, Utopics: Systems and Landmarks
Hardcover, 160 pp., offset 4/4, 160 x 220 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-03764-056-2
Published by JRP|Ringier

$45.00 ·

This publication examines the spaces, nations, and communities created by artists or indivuals to develop alternative modes of living. Throughout history individuals have continuously developed systems based on a mix of reality, fiction, and mediatization, create micro-nations, or fight for their existence. All these proposals are simultaneously real and utopic. By inventing identity signs (IDs, flags, constitutions, currencies, etc.), by practicing their beliefs (be it through dance, naturism, terrorism, or collectivism), and by working on the boundaries of reality (parallel worlds, isolationism, new territories, etc.), these proposals are challenging our definitions of normalcy and territoriality. The title Utopics is itself the free contraction of utopias, you, topic, topos, and pics.

Conceived as a glossary, the book includes artists such as Le Bélier, Carsten Höller, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Fabrice Gygi, General Idea, Lang/Baumann, Matt Mullican, Mai-Thu Perret, NSK (Irwin), Peter Coffin, Steiner & Lenzlinger, Superflex, as well as intitiatives such as La République Géniale (Robert Filliou), State of Sabotage (Robert Jelinek), micro-nations, L’Ecole de Stéphanie, etc.