"...Public is intelligent, well researched and most importantly, very informative. A definite breath of fresh air."
~Broken Pencil Magazine~
NEWS
BACK ISSUES
For a full list of contents or contributors please email public@yorku.ca
Public?
Public? is an anniversary issue; a celebration of twenty years of critical thinking and creative engagement with the notion of the public—as imaginary relation, politico-juridical construct, and material spatial practice. In seeking to capture the journal’s ambition to interrogate and complicate the terrain of the public, the editors replaced the period with the question mark: is public still a useful term with which we can think about culture and politics, art and technology? Does it remain relevant to our efforts to define the political and imagine new forms of intervention, engagement, and interference that may transform the parameters of citizenship, community, and our understandings of democracy? In short: does public mean anything anymore?
Emergency
Emergencies make up the news of the day, enemies are identified and targeted, increased security measures mark our public spaces, and we are becoming adept at shuttering down. This issue gathers works that cover a range of topics relating to the idea of emergency, in the form of scholarly texts, testimonials, journalistic research and artists' projects. Chicken Little had no idea.
FEATURE ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Stan Denniston, Paulette Phillips, Boja Vasic, Frank Woodbury and Greg Woodbury
Crack The Sky
La Biennale de Montreal
Curated by Wayne Baerwaldt of The Alberta College of Art and Design, this issue is a collaboration with the Centre International D’Art Contemporain of Montreal, showcasing a diverse range of over fifty international and Canadian artists. The Biennale exhibition focused on the theme of “borders.” The fluidity of borders, whether they be physical, conceptual, or political. This issue is all in colour, and all about the visual presentation of art.
FEATURE ARTISTS INCLUDE:
David Altmejd, Lynne Cohen, Graeme Patterson, and Annie Pootoogook.
d:/personal
Questioning the nature of the “personal” in the context of digital mediation, editors Chloë Brushwood-Rose and Caitlin Fisher explore here the theme of confession and first-person narrative in relation to technology. Websites, blogs, hypertexts, and internet-based memoirs and art projects are only a few of the gems to discover in this special combination of DVD and writing.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Michael Current, Hasan Elahi, Camille Turner, and Xiao Li Tan
Errata
The Cultural Productivity of Accidents, Errors, and Unforeseen Events
Guest editors An Te Liu and Andrew Payne reflect on the role played by the accidental, the erroneous, and the unforeseen in the theory and practice of the contemporary arts and sciences.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Olafur Eliasson, Carsten Nicolai, Bernard Stiegler, William Forsythe, and Marla Hlady, who created a special limited edition art piece for the first fifty lucky respondents to our “special offer.”
Urban Interventions
From a symposium on art and the city with Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art and The Visible City Project
Our highest selling issue! This unique collection of works investigate the changing relationships and intersections between art, urban environments, and citizenship.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Vera Frenkel, Kaja Silverman, and George Yudice, and including an element of surprise art by Adam Krawesky. Editors Saara Liinamaa, Janine Marchessault, and Karyn Sandlos.
Eating Things
Edited by Scott Toguri-McFarlane, this 224-page issue covers biotechnology, biodiversity, organics and agribusiness, and is chock full of sharp writing and stunning art projects. Featuring a gorgeous colour fold-out by photographer Alain Paiment, this issue is like a sumptuous dessert.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Richard Manning, Martha Rosler, Lee Ka-Sing, Lee Friedlander, Liz Magor and Susan Kealey
Localities
Exploring the dynamic play of city structure, symbolic interaction, and critical intervention, Localities discovers new possibilities for urban engagement. Editors Saara Liinamaa, Janine Marchessault, and Christine Shaw have created here a stellar line-up of works.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Kika Thorne and Adrian Blackwell, Jane Jacobs, Steve McCaffery, and Kirsten Forkert
Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas
Emerging from a 2002/2003 exhibition at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery, this issue draws parallels between depictions and suggestions of violence, and reflects on the aesthetics of control, catharsis and elegy. Editors William Wood and Reid Shier curated a stand-out collection of belles letters, anecdotes, poetics and music.
FEATURE VANCOUVER ARTISTS & AUTHORS:
Geoffrey Farmer, Ron Terada, Marina Roy, Althea Thauberger, and Michael Turner
Shop
A clever and (de)constructive analysis of marketing, colonialism, and the consumption of culture locally and internationally, Shop will change the way you perceive consumer comforts. Topics range from a surprise art centre in Zimbabwe, to globalization in Argentina, to window-shopping in the Cold-War era. This issue is smart, savvy, and stylish.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Jamaica Kincaid, Charles Mungoshi, and Christopher Crozier, and edited by Rebecca Garrett, Deborah Root, and Dot Tuer
Nature
An eclectic mix of art, commentaries, and poetics, focusing on ecologies and diverse environments, Nature is a force to be reckoned with. Works by Bernar Venet, Bill Burns, Sherri Hay, Elisabeth de Fontenay, and Sarindar Dahliwal, and cover art by Iain Baxter contribute to the exceptional content of this issue.
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Ken Allan, Lang Baker, and Susan Lord
Experimentalism
Described by editors Gary Kibbins and Susan Lord as “a rather slippery object,” the concept of experimentalism is remarkably expounded upon within the pages of this issue. These debates on practice and politics arose at a 2001 Public conference entitled, “Blowing The Trumpet to the Tulips: An Exchange on Experimental Media.”
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE WRITTEN VERSION INCLUDE:
Scott MacDonald, John Greyson, Ho Tam, Alessandra Lischi and Abigail Child. Image stills included are by Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby, Jack Smith, and Brenda Longfellow.
Cities/Scenes
This seminal issue includes the first examination of urban culture undertaken by Public, editors Janine Marchessault and Will Straw created here a framework to discuss the sense of urban belonging in terms of local cultures as well as the specifics of global place-building.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Alan Blum, Janet Jones, Brian Poole, Tom Taylor, and Margaux Williamson
Lexicon
This brilliant and eclectic 2-issue set delves into the meaning behind words and images, from A-Z. Over 100 artists and writers ruminate on the verbal and the visual, including Freda Guttman, Dominic Molon, R.M. Vaughan, Paul Virilio and Emily Raboteau. There are over 96 more artists for you to discover within these pages—a must-have issue! This is a special double-issue that comes packaged with the next issue in this list as well. Get 2 for the price of 1!
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Ken Allan, Christine Davis, Lang Baker
Lexicon
This brilliant and eclectic 2-issue set delves into the meaning behind words and images, from A-Z. Over 100 artists and writers ruminate on the verbal and the visual, including Freda Guttman, Dominic Molon, R.M. Vaughan, Paul Virilio and Emily Raboteau. There are over 96 more artists for you to discover within these pages—a must-have issue!
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Ken Allan, Christine Davis, Lang Baker
Light
From the history of the Enlightenment to the concept of “lite” culture, editors Janine Marchessault and Susan Lord explore the uses of light in modernism, war, cinemas, DNA imaging, reproductive technologies, and television comedy. This unique collection of artists’ projects, poetry, fiction, and historical essays successfully illuminates the investigation. Buy a copy and see for yourself.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Stan Denniston, Andreas Kessler, Nelson Henricks, and Annette Burfoot
Talk
Discussions and interviews, interludes and interruptions…this issue reflects on the concept of talk not as a discursive object, but as spontaneous and informal, and the result is an intensely stimulating conversation between editors Christina Ritchie and Jacob Wren with contributors E.M. Cioran, Nicholas Mosley, Jan Peacock, William H. Gass, Christine Hart and more!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
E.M. Cioran, Nicholas Mosley, Jan Peacock, William H. Gass, Christine Hart
Entangled Territories:
Imagining The Orient
Editors Deborah Root and Walid Ra’ad produced this outstanding discourse on the politics and power of constructing and deconstructing the postcolonial implications of the “East” and the “West”. The collection juxtaposes a range of work from different sites of cultural and visual analyses.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Jayce Salloum, Jalal Toufic, Erdag Aksel, and Ralph Coury.
Icons and Idols
“Many of the pieces in this issue address the transparency of social relations that the imaging technologies of the Renaissance introduced…they urge us to a re-engagement with the image not merely in its social and cultural contexts, but in its sacred dimensions as well.” (p.3)
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Andrew Payne and Evonne Levy Feature Contributors: John Massey, Michael Nedjar, Simon Glass, Rebecca Comay
Quebec
This issue explores the cultural nationalism and distinct geographies, politics, and identity of la belle province (circa 1996, post referendum). Edited by Janine Marchessault, and featuring the writing of Chantal Nadeau, Quebec is an intelligent and informative piece of history.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Will Straw, Charles Guilbert and Serge Murphy, with art projects by John and Anne-Marie Zepetelli.
Touch in Contemporary Art
Editor David Tomas explores the tactile and sensory possibilities within human experience in the context of contemporary western art. Each essay deals with sensual and sensory transformation, from mechanical to digital representation, extolling the virtues and intrigues of the change in sensory landscape.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Richard Shiff, Jacinto Lageira, Louise Wilson, Christine Ross, and George Quasha & Charles Stein.
Utopias
The poetics of the ideal and the discourse of downfall; each essay in this out-of-print collection either critiques or extols the ideology or experience of perfection.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Christine Davis and Susan Lord Featuring: Giorgio Agamben, Christa Wolf, José Lebrero Stals, and Karl-Ludwig Lange
Throughput
This 1995 issue debates the intersection of culture and technology before the digital bandwagon. Included are essays and art on cyberspace, “new” technologies, traditional and innovative communications, and digital interventions.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Marc deGuerre and Kathleen Pirrie Adams Featuring: Toshiwo Iwai, Catherine Richards, Derrick de Kerckhove, and Veronica Hollinger.
Love
Romantic love and revolutionary passion; transgression; discourses on language, privacy, and contradiction; and the juxtaposition of political, global, and narcissistic interests; these are only a few of the topics covered by our feature editors.
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Christine Davis and Janine Marchessualt. This unique collection features Allen S. Weiss, Cornel West, Cheryl Sorkes, Derek Jarman, and Chantal Thomas.
Reading Our Rights
Packed with compelling essays on justice and jurisprudence, this issue investigates the myriad of issues surrounding the discourse on rights, and includes stimulating essays by George Baird, Peter Goodrich, and R.B.J. Walker, Deborah Esch, and Avital Ronell.
FEATURE EDITOR:
Andrew Payne
The Ethics of Enactment
Ethics and social practice are the concepts explored in this issue. The ethical is translated into the visual through imagery, observation, and performance, and the ethos of identities and politics are expertly manifested through the essays collected in this issue.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Marc deGuerre and Kathleen Pirrie Adams Featuring: Danny Tisdale, Sue Golding, Will Straw, Ronald Jones, Beth Seaton, and Jack Ben-Levi.
Coming Soon
Info on issue 7 is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Violence
Democracy, authoritarianism, radicalism, and the unthinkable: violence is engendered and enacted within all these public spheres. Contributors to this issue question the meanings and possibilities of acts of violence and retribution.
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Mark Lewis, Andrew Payne, Tom Taylor Featuring: Lorenzo Buj, Manuel Delanda, Astrid Klein, Chief Gary Potts, and Rosalyn Deutsche.
Coming Soon
Info for issue 4/5 is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Coming Soon
Info for issue 4/5 is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Carnal Knowledge
This retro issue from 1989 focuses on critical thinking of the body. Theoretical debates range from Philip Monk’s essay on the writer as subject, titled, “Decapitation, Criticism and Terror” to Nicole Brossard’s examination of ritual in “Corps D’Energie/Rituels D’Ecriture.” Also included are some cool, lewd photos in Simon Watney’s piece, “The Homosexual Body.”
OTHER THEORISTS FEATURED INCLUDE:
Charles Levin and Lola Lemire Tostevin. A collector’s item! Editors: Sylvie Belanger, Christine Davis, Mark Lewis, Janine Marchessault, Tom Taylor.
The Lunatic of One Idea
Some articles included here address the art project of the same name: curated by The Public Access Collective in 1987/88, sixteen artists produced short video works for a video-wall installation in a suburban shopping mall. Other articles explore broader issues pertaining to new technology and the public sphere, and the relationship between public and private technologies.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Sylvie Bélanger, Christine Davis, Mark Lewis, Janine Marchessault, Tom Taylor Featuring: Paul Virilio, Jacques Derrida, Laura Mulvey, and Krzysztof Wodiczko.
Coming Soon
Info about issue one is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
New Communities
The present popularity of "community" as a topic in art and theory goes hand in hand with the big changes currently taking place in how community is envisioned and experienced. For several years the work of many artists and theoreticians has been increasingly orienting itself on questions around forms of living together, in the private as well as the collective social sphere. Epoch-making changes are occurring in recent histories after 1989, such as the idea of a new Europe with its (geo)political changes and globalized work and relationship structures which create new closenesses and possibilities for working together, but which at the same time corroborate or extend old power structures in underhanded ways. These new experiences raise many questions that the essays collected here approach from different points of view. This reader endeavors to bring together and discuss the relevant discourses in the broader art context.
The present popularity of "community" as a topic in art and theory goes hand in hand with the big changes currently taking place in how community is envisioned and experienced. For several years the work of many artists and theoreticians has been increasingly orienting itself on questions around forms of living together, in the private as well as the collective social sphere. Epoch-making changes are occurring in recent histories after 1989, such as the idea of a new Europe with its (geo)political changes and globalized work and relationship structures which create new closenesses and possibilities for working together, but which at the same time corroborate or extend old power structures in underhanded ways. These new experiences raise many questions that the essays collected here approach from different points of view. This reader endeavors to bring together and discuss the relevant discourses in the broader art context.
Projects for a small world
This issue of Public is a companion 20th anniversary issue to Issue 37: Public? and is dedicated entirely to artists' projects. Whereas the former focussed on a discursive analysis of current modes of the "public" this issue posits the imaginative potential of the artist project as a catalyst. The issue features artists whose practice touches upon the paradoxical experience of collapsing distance between public and private spheres and the expanding gap between inner and outer worlds. What the work might share is an impulse to create cosmologies. And hopefully Projects for a small world, as a book itself, circulates orbits and overlaps these differing modalities of the imaginary.
FEATURE ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Fiona Banner, Geoffrey Farmer, Glenn Ligon, Shelagh Keeley, Kelly Mark, John Massey, Adrian Paci
This issue of Public is a companion 20th anniversary issue to Issue 37: Public? and is dedicated entirely to artists' projects. Whereas the former focussed on a discursive analysis of current modes of the "public" this issue posits the imaginative potential of the artist project as a catalyst. The issue features artists whose practice touches upon the paradoxical experience of collapsing distance between public and private spheres and the expanding gap between inner and outer worlds. What the work might share is an impulse to create cosmologies. And hopefully Projects for a small world, as a book itself, circulates orbits and overlaps these differing modalities of the imaginary.
FEATURE ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Fiona Banner, Geoffrey Farmer, Glenn Ligon, Shelagh Keeley, Kelly Mark, John Massey, Adrian Paci
Public?Public? is an anniversary issue; a celebration of twenty years of critical thinking and creative engagement with the notion of the public—as imaginary relation, politico-juridical construct, and material spatial practice. In seeking to capture the journal’s ambition to interrogate and complicate the terrain of the public, the editors replaced the period with the question mark: is public still a useful term with which we can think about culture and politics, art and technology? Does it remain relevant to our efforts to define the political and imagine new forms of intervention, engagement, and interference that may transform the parameters of citizenship, community, and our understandings of democracy? In short: does public mean anything anymore?
EmergencyEmergencies make up the news of the day, enemies are identified and targeted, increased security measures mark our public spaces, and we are becoming adept at shuttering down. This issue gathers works that cover a range of topics relating to the idea of emergency, in the form of scholarly texts, testimonials, journalistic research and artists' projects. Chicken Little had no idea.
FEATURE ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Stan Denniston, Paulette Phillips, Boja Vasic, Frank Woodbury and Greg Woodbury
Crack The SkyLa Biennale de Montreal
Curated by Wayne Baerwaldt of The Alberta College of Art and Design, this issue is a collaboration with the Centre International D’Art Contemporain of Montreal, showcasing a diverse range of over fifty international and Canadian artists. The Biennale exhibition focused on the theme of “borders.” The fluidity of borders, whether they be physical, conceptual, or political. This issue is all in colour, and all about the visual presentation of art.
FEATURE ARTISTS INCLUDE:
David Altmejd, Lynne Cohen, Graeme Patterson, and Annie Pootoogook.
d:/personalQuestioning the nature of the “personal” in the context of digital mediation, editors Chloë Brushwood-Rose and Caitlin Fisher explore here the theme of confession and first-person narrative in relation to technology. Websites, blogs, hypertexts, and internet-based memoirs and art projects are only a few of the gems to discover in this special combination of DVD and writing.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Michael Current, Hasan Elahi, Camille Turner, and Xiao Li Tan
ErrataThe Cultural Productivity of Accidents, Errors, and Unforeseen Events
Guest editors An Te Liu and Andrew Payne reflect on the role played by the accidental, the erroneous, and the unforeseen in the theory and practice of the contemporary arts and sciences.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Olafur Eliasson, Carsten Nicolai, Bernard Stiegler, William Forsythe, and Marla Hlady, who created a special limited edition art piece for the first fifty lucky respondents to our “special offer.”
Urban InterventionsFrom a symposium on art and the city with Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art and The Visible City Project
Our highest selling issue! This unique collection of works investigate the changing relationships and intersections between art, urban environments, and citizenship.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Vera Frenkel, Kaja Silverman, and George Yudice, and including an element of surprise art by Adam Krawesky. Editors Saara Liinamaa, Janine Marchessault, and Karyn Sandlos.
Digital Poetics and Politics:
The Work of the Local in the Age of Globalization
The twenty-five contributors to this issue represent the majority of the participants in the Digital Politics and Poetics Summer Institute, held at Queen’s University in August 2004. The combined booklet/DVD/Website Digipopo that comprise this special issue provide responses to issues such as pirating or copyright infringement, the commodity-cluttered and ephemeral space of the web, unequal access and development, as well as the political economies and aesthetic vocabularies of technologically driven cultural forms.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Nick Dyer-Witheford, Richard Fung, Gita Hashemi, and Anna Friz. Editors: Glenn Gear, Susan Lord, Dorit Naaman, Matt Soar, Miriam Verburg.
The Work of the Local in the Age of Globalization
The twenty-five contributors to this issue represent the majority of the participants in the Digital Politics and Poetics Summer Institute, held at Queen’s University in August 2004. The combined booklet/DVD/Website Digipopo that comprise this special issue provide responses to issues such as pirating or copyright infringement, the commodity-cluttered and ephemeral space of the web, unequal access and development, as well as the political economies and aesthetic vocabularies of technologically driven cultural forms.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Nick Dyer-Witheford, Richard Fung, Gita Hashemi, and Anna Friz. Editors: Glenn Gear, Susan Lord, Dorit Naaman, Matt Soar, Miriam Verburg.
Eating ThingsEdited by Scott Toguri-McFarlane, this 224-page issue covers biotechnology, biodiversity, organics and agribusiness, and is chock full of sharp writing and stunning art projects. Featuring a gorgeous colour fold-out by photographer Alain Paiment, this issue is like a sumptuous dessert.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Richard Manning, Martha Rosler, Lee Ka-Sing, Lee Friedlander, Liz Magor and Susan Kealey
LocalitiesExploring the dynamic play of city structure, symbolic interaction, and critical intervention, Localities discovers new possibilities for urban engagement. Editors Saara Liinamaa, Janine Marchessault, and Christine Shaw have created here a stellar line-up of works.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Kika Thorne and Adrian Blackwell, Jane Jacobs, Steve McCaffery, and Kirsten Forkert
Satan Oscillate My Metallic SonatasEmerging from a 2002/2003 exhibition at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery, this issue draws parallels between depictions and suggestions of violence, and reflects on the aesthetics of control, catharsis and elegy. Editors William Wood and Reid Shier curated a stand-out collection of belles letters, anecdotes, poetics and music.
FEATURE VANCOUVER ARTISTS & AUTHORS:
Geoffrey Farmer, Ron Terada, Marina Roy, Althea Thauberger, and Michael Turner
ShopA clever and (de)constructive analysis of marketing, colonialism, and the consumption of culture locally and internationally, Shop will change the way you perceive consumer comforts. Topics range from a surprise art centre in Zimbabwe, to globalization in Argentina, to window-shopping in the Cold-War era. This issue is smart, savvy, and stylish.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Jamaica Kincaid, Charles Mungoshi, and Christopher Crozier, and edited by Rebecca Garrett, Deborah Root, and Dot Tuer
NatureAn eclectic mix of art, commentaries, and poetics, focusing on ecologies and diverse environments, Nature is a force to be reckoned with. Works by Bernar Venet, Bill Burns, Sherri Hay, Elisabeth de Fontenay, and Sarindar Dahliwal, and cover art by Iain Baxter contribute to the exceptional content of this issue.
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Ken Allan, Lang Baker, and Susan Lord
ExperimentalismDescribed by editors Gary Kibbins and Susan Lord as “a rather slippery object,” the concept of experimentalism is remarkably expounded upon within the pages of this issue. These debates on practice and politics arose at a 2001 Public conference entitled, “Blowing The Trumpet to the Tulips: An Exchange on Experimental Media.”
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE WRITTEN VERSION INCLUDE:
Scott MacDonald, John Greyson, Ho Tam, Alessandra Lischi and Abigail Child. Image stills included are by Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby, Jack Smith, and Brenda Longfellow.
Being On Time
This issue emerged from an extensive art project where students from a Toronto high school worked with professional artists to produce an interactive exhibition. The resulting installations, shown in the issue in CD-ROM format, explored the relationships and boundaries between high school and the city, art and education, age and adolescence, and high and low technology. The works included chart the experience of time in high school, or, as Marshall McLuhan deftly put it, “doing time.”
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
With excerpts from McLuhan, contributions from students, and featuring artists James Carl, Sean Cubitt, Kelly Mark, Shawna Dempsey and Lori Millan, Michael Snow, and Lisa Steele. Editors: Chloë Brushwood-Rose, Caitlin Fisher, Marc Piccinato, Sarah Robayo Sheridan.
This issue emerged from an extensive art project where students from a Toronto high school worked with professional artists to produce an interactive exhibition. The resulting installations, shown in the issue in CD-ROM format, explored the relationships and boundaries between high school and the city, art and education, age and adolescence, and high and low technology. The works included chart the experience of time in high school, or, as Marshall McLuhan deftly put it, “doing time.”
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
With excerpts from McLuhan, contributions from students, and featuring artists James Carl, Sean Cubitt, Kelly Mark, Shawna Dempsey and Lori Millan, Michael Snow, and Lisa Steele. Editors: Chloë Brushwood-Rose, Caitlin Fisher, Marc Piccinato, Sarah Robayo Sheridan.
Cities/ScenesThis seminal issue includes the first examination of urban culture undertaken by Public, editors Janine Marchessault and Will Straw created here a framework to discuss the sense of urban belonging in terms of local cultures as well as the specifics of global place-building.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Alan Blum, Janet Jones, Brian Poole, Tom Taylor, and Margaux Williamson
Childhood
The title of this issue says it all. From the time we are just imaginings, the processes of social construction are already at work. This issue tackles self-discovery, power and play, French historian Philippe Aries, and, of course, it includes the perspectives of some pretty cool kids. This issue is for the kid in all of us.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Giorgio Agamben, Adriana S. Benzaquen, Cliff Eyland, and Chantal Thomas, and edited by Christina Ritchie and Jacob Wren
LexiconThis brilliant and eclectic 2-issue set delves into the meaning behind words and images, from A-Z. Over 100 artists and writers ruminate on the verbal and the visual, including Freda Guttman, Dominic Molon, R.M. Vaughan, Paul Virilio and Emily Raboteau. There are over 96 more artists for you to discover within these pages—a must-have issue! This is a special double-issue that comes packaged with the next issue in this list as well. Get 2 for the price of 1!
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Ken Allan, Christine Davis, Lang Baker
LexiconThis brilliant and eclectic 2-issue set delves into the meaning behind words and images, from A-Z. Over 100 artists and writers ruminate on the verbal and the visual, including Freda Guttman, Dominic Molon, R.M. Vaughan, Paul Virilio and Emily Raboteau. There are over 96 more artists for you to discover within these pages—a must-have issue!
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Ken Allan, Christine Davis, Lang Baker
LightFrom the history of the Enlightenment to the concept of “lite” culture, editors Janine Marchessault and Susan Lord explore the uses of light in modernism, war, cinemas, DNA imaging, reproductive technologies, and television comedy. This unique collection of artists’ projects, poetry, fiction, and historical essays successfully illuminates the investigation. Buy a copy and see for yourself.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Stan Denniston, Andreas Kessler, Nelson Henricks, and Annette Burfoot
TalkDiscussions and interviews, interludes and interruptions…this issue reflects on the concept of talk not as a discursive object, but as spontaneous and informal, and the result is an intensely stimulating conversation between editors Christina Ritchie and Jacob Wren with contributors E.M. Cioran, Nicholas Mosley, Jan Peacock, William H. Gass, Christine Hart and more!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
E.M. Cioran, Nicholas Mosley, Jan Peacock, William H. Gass, Christine Hart
Entangled Territories:Imagining The Orient
Editors Deborah Root and Walid Ra’ad produced this outstanding discourse on the politics and power of constructing and deconstructing the postcolonial implications of the “East” and the “West”. The collection juxtaposes a range of work from different sites of cultural and visual analyses.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Jayce Salloum, Jalal Toufic, Erdag Aksel, and Ralph Coury.
Icons and Idols“Many of the pieces in this issue address the transparency of social relations that the imaging technologies of the Renaissance introduced…they urge us to a re-engagement with the image not merely in its social and cultural contexts, but in its sacred dimensions as well.” (p.3)
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Andrew Payne and Evonne Levy Feature Contributors: John Massey, Michael Nedjar, Simon Glass, Rebecca Comay
QuebecThis issue explores the cultural nationalism and distinct geographies, politics, and identity of la belle province (circa 1996, post referendum). Edited by Janine Marchessault, and featuring the writing of Chantal Nadeau, Quebec is an intelligent and informative piece of history.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Will Straw, Charles Guilbert and Serge Murphy, with art projects by John and Anne-Marie Zepetelli.
Touch in Contemporary ArtEditor David Tomas explores the tactile and sensory possibilities within human experience in the context of contemporary western art. Each essay deals with sensual and sensory transformation, from mechanical to digital representation, extolling the virtues and intrigues of the change in sensory landscape.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Richard Shiff, Jacinto Lageira, Louise Wilson, Christine Ross, and George Quasha & Charles Stein.
UtopiasThe poetics of the ideal and the discourse of downfall; each essay in this out-of-print collection either critiques or extols the ideology or experience of perfection.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Christine Davis and Susan Lord Featuring: Giorgio Agamben, Christa Wolf, José Lebrero Stals, and Karl-Ludwig Lange
ThroughputThis 1995 issue debates the intersection of culture and technology before the digital bandwagon. Included are essays and art on cyberspace, “new” technologies, traditional and innovative communications, and digital interventions.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Marc deGuerre and Kathleen Pirrie Adams Featuring: Toshiwo Iwai, Catherine Richards, Derrick de Kerckhove, and Veronica Hollinger.
LoveRomantic love and revolutionary passion; transgression; discourses on language, privacy, and contradiction; and the juxtaposition of political, global, and narcissistic interests; these are only a few of the topics covered by our feature editors.
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Christine Davis and Janine Marchessualt. This unique collection features Allen S. Weiss, Cornel West, Cheryl Sorkes, Derek Jarman, and Chantal Thomas.
Reading Our RightsPacked with compelling essays on justice and jurisprudence, this issue investigates the myriad of issues surrounding the discourse on rights, and includes stimulating essays by George Baird, Peter Goodrich, and R.B.J. Walker, Deborah Esch, and Avital Ronell.
FEATURE EDITOR:
Andrew Payne
The Ethics of EnactmentEthics and social practice are the concepts explored in this issue. The ethical is translated into the visual through imagery, observation, and performance, and the ethos of identities and politics are expertly manifested through the essays collected in this issue.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Editors: Marc deGuerre and Kathleen Pirrie Adams Featuring: Danny Tisdale, Sue Golding, Will Straw, Ronald Jones, Beth Seaton, and Jack Ben-Levi.
Coming SoonInfo on issue 7 is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
ViolenceDemocracy, authoritarianism, radicalism, and the unthinkable: violence is engendered and enacted within all these public spheres. Contributors to this issue question the meanings and possibilities of acts of violence and retribution.
FEATURE EDITORS INCLUDE:
Mark Lewis, Andrew Payne, Tom Taylor Featuring: Lorenzo Buj, Manuel Delanda, Astrid Klein, Chief Gary Potts, and Rosalyn Deutsche.
Coming SoonInfo for issue 4/5 is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Coming SoonInfo for issue 4/5 is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Carnal KnowledgeThis retro issue from 1989 focuses on critical thinking of the body. Theoretical debates range from Philip Monk’s essay on the writer as subject, titled, “Decapitation, Criticism and Terror” to Nicole Brossard’s examination of ritual in “Corps D’Energie/Rituels D’Ecriture.” Also included are some cool, lewd photos in Simon Watney’s piece, “The Homosexual Body.”
OTHER THEORISTS FEATURED INCLUDE:
Charles Levin and Lola Lemire Tostevin. A collector’s item! Editors: Sylvie Belanger, Christine Davis, Mark Lewis, Janine Marchessault, Tom Taylor.
The Lunatic of One IdeaSome articles included here address the art project of the same name: curated by The Public Access Collective in 1987/88, sixteen artists produced short video works for a video-wall installation in a suburban shopping mall. Other articles explore broader issues pertaining to new technology and the public sphere, and the relationship between public and private technologies.
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE:
Sylvie Bélanger, Christine Davis, Mark Lewis, Janine Marchessault, Tom Taylor Featuring: Paul Virilio, Jacques Derrida, Laura Mulvey, and Krzysztof Wodiczko.
Coming SoonInfo about issue one is coming soon!
FEATURE AUTHORS INCLUDE: