3 Communiqués
'3 Communiqués',
published by Bookworks London, September 2007
pp. 80, 230 x 165mm, full colour publication in 3 parts;
designed by Simon Joesbury, Secondary Modern
Supported by Arts Council of Wales, Arts Humanities Research Council & University of Reading
ISBN 978 1 870699 91 4
'So I examined first the pictures - strange mystifying documentary poseurs - then read the words, read them slowly because there was something about the size of each book and the size of the print which insisted on the sheer existence of atmosphere, which insisted in turn on something harder to discern. These were books listening to a mass audience but at a deeper level than the audience knew.'
Book Review: ‘3 Communiqués’, Karen Elliot, 3am Magazine, November 2007
'Good News (for once in your life) There is a solution to your situation' , an event in collaboration with Olivia Plender, Rosalind Nashashibi, Fiona Tan, Ahmet Ogut and Luca Frei, Bookworks, London
'Three Rendezvous'
ERROR #9 // Gastproject in Extra City, Antwerpen
Rendez-vous 1: Donderdag 24 april 20:00h: "Speech as a Political Act", lezing volgens scenario door Nicoline van Harskamp Rendez-vous 2: Zaterdag 03 mei 18:00h: "The Blackmailers", film van Tristan Wibault Rendez-vous 3: Zaterdag 10 mei 18:00h: "X. v. Prefect of..." - Counsel's speech for a legal precedent", performance door Patrick Bernier, Olive Martin, Sylvia Preuss-Laussinotte & Sébastien Canevet
The Protein Man is embroiled in an argument. He wanders the city streets campaigning for the suppression of desire. His pamphleteering outlines the connections between nutrition, sedentary life and human sexuality. In parallel, a second constellation recounts the consistency of a non-conformist group founded on action-analysis and bohemian schedules. No project, perhaps, has so radically attempted to place desire at its centre. Elsewhere, socialist-utopian Charles Fourier forms the basis of a discussion about a state in the process of becoming. His passional series and visionary designs of the Phalanx rouse the search for a virtual islet of resistance.
'It is an occultation, not dead but marginally present, ripe for speculation. And, perhaps to whatever remnants of past visions it has thrown off, like so many sparks from a comet. The frozen and flat scene exists outside the real, outside narrative and historical time. There is the outline of a landscape, a possible romantic object, and straightforward metaphor. Even so there is also an uncertainty that derives from the juggling of pronouns and perspective between I, you and we, suggesting that the unity of the scene does not hold.'
'3 Communiqués' is a documentary fiction charting a journey through the marginal histories of communalism, self-presentation and collective agency. The narrative speculates as to the significance of a small pamphlet, a strange orange flower, the disappearance of a statue and the productive misreading of theory, while succumbing to the vertiginous unreliability of archives.
'3 Communiqués' is dense with connections between the histories of political idealism, aesthetic revolt and plain crankishness. The book itself embodies its infolding themes: its design somewhat resembles that of Georges Bataille's ‘Documents' (1929-30), and the parts are concertinaed together so that the whole looks as eccentric as its inspiring and absurd subjects.'
Book Review: ‘3 Communiqués’, Brian Dillon, Art Review, Issue 19 February 2008
'3 Communiqués' was launched at 'Friday Sessions' Publicworks, London, in discussion with artist Luca Frei, editor Gerrie van Noord and curator Emily Pethick, CASCO Office for Art, Theory & Design, Utrecht; and Kathrin Boehm, Andreas Lang and Celine Condorelli.