Who can afford to be critical?

Moving beyond the usual genres of form in graphic design’s canonical history, ‘Designing History’ proposes a model centred on bureaucratic instruments of identity, ownership, value, and permission: money, passports, certificates, property deeds, etc. It considers the implications of a design history of the document, where the designer shifts from being a practitioner of conventional design histories to become subject and agency of bureaucratic authority. The book is a revised edition of ‘Immutable: Designing History’ (2022) and includes an extended essay that contextualizes the project as a remapping of graphic design’s historical, pedagogical, and practical assumptions.

This book frequently uses the word ‘we’. We, as in the general public, engaged citizens, humans of planet Earth… And we, Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat, together with our team at Daily tous les jours, as we seek new models for living together. Welcome to our journal. 

We crave living in environments that support us, nourish us and inspire us. We dream of places to go through our lives together, inclusively and tolerantly. Can we re-enchant the raw material of our collective daily experiences? We have been creating interactive art and narrative experiences in public spaces around the world for fifteen years. Using music, dance, art, and other mediums to emphasize the joyful, whimsical, and unexpected, we create moments of connection and care between strangers. 

Through this book, we share our experience in building an emergent practice combining technology, storytelling, performance, and design, while asking fundamental questions to create meaningful work in a world in crisis. Meet us outside the urban masterplan, where we experiment with infrastructure for the human spirit.

In a world propelled by swift technological progress and perpetual obsolescence, women frequently find themselves adapting and altering their daily experiences in order to remain functional. In the 21st century, as technology purports to comprehensively assess and address women’s conditions and physical discomfort, Cycles, the Sacred and the Doomed delves deeply into the realm of female health technologies, revealing a space where science, holistic methods, and mythology converge. This book challenges the idea of combining ancient wisdom with modern innovation and takes readers on a multidisciplinary journey to explore the intricacies of female’s health.

A survey of and reflection on artists using/ hijacking institutional formats. 

Self-Institution/Terminology Audit is a collection of profiles and lexicons documenting artistic practices that operate as self-declared institutions. It examines the act of self-institution as both a conceptual and operational approach, focusing on how these practices structure themselves and engage with their contexts.

Initiated by the Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence (O.J.A.I.), this publication investigates artist offices, bureaus, departments, ministries, societies, centres, and other explicitly institutional invocations. The Terminology Audit reveals language and jargon unique to each practice. The case studies, currently active in the field, represent a broad range of approaches, including research-based, performance-driven, pragmatic, materially motivated, counter-institutional, esoteric, and absurd facsimiles of institutionhood.

The publication was conceptualized and introduced by Chris Dreier and Gary Farrelly (O.J.A.I.), featuring an essay by Gary Farrelly, due diligence text by Andrea Knezović, and a responsorial note by Alicja Melzacka. Included self-instituted entities are: The Bureau of Melodramatic Research (BMR), The Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence (O.J.A.I.), Self Luminous Society, Gesellschaft zur Emanzipation des Samples G.E.S, Department of Ultimology, Minister of Cosmic People, Tac.ka Association, KOLXOZ, Pls, I’m Trying to Think Institute (PITTI), This Institute, Aurora-Rhoman Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, AARS (Antwerp Artist Run School), The Letter Space Department (TLSD), Temporary Information Center (T.I.C.).

Design Fiction is a method to vividly render tangible futures by creating material artifacts that represent the implications of change. Design Fiction is as much a mindset as it is a methodology whereby foresight, research, expectations, strategic direction, and planning can be cohered into representational ‘artifacts from possible futures.’from possible futures. Design fiction opens up new conversations and considerations whilst augmenting existing, well-trodden research and foresight practices.

Over fifteen years in the making, this book explores the origins of design fiction, and details the practical approach to assessing the consequences of decision making by creating tangible artifacts from possible futures. Design fiction opens up new conversations and considerations whilst augmenting existing, well-trodden research and foresight practices. The writers of this book have used design fiction approaches with clients such as Apple, Warner Bros, IKEA, Edelman, Dubai Museum of the Future, Google and Facebook, and they aim to bring these techniques to a wider audience through the publication of this book.

Written by Julian Bleecker, Nick Foster, Fabien Girardin and Nicolas Nova in collaboration with Patrick Pittman and Chris Frey of No Media Co. Designed by Chris Lange

New York-based professor Lytle Shaw journeys to Italy in this adventurous exploration of the life and work of architect, designer, and photographer Carlo Mollino (1905–1973). In 1933 the young Mollino received a commission from Mussolini’s regime for his first building: an administrative centre in Piedmont. Later works include furniture and interior design, a book on photography, and an asymmetrical car that raced at Le Mans in 1955.

The book centres around Shaw’s realisation that this prolific talent’s conflicted legacy offers a unique window on the role that post-war Italian politics and culture played in the country’s reimagining of itself as a victim, rather than a proponent, of fascism.

What does it mean to be a curator who writes, and, more specifically, how can curators write about textiles? This publication steps outside the framework of the typical exhibition catalogue to occupy "the space between literature and criticism".

The Community of writers was set up to create time and space to retreat from these outside opinions and demands and to let curiosity and the joy of writing be the driving forces of the writing process. This book has been realised under the auspice of Interweaving Structures: Fabric as Material, Method, and Message, and specifically through collaboration between the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen and the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź. The two partners have strong positions of specialisation—the museum acts as a caretaker of material textile traditions and art in Poland, and the faculty has a strong textile art tradition and offers the only education programme for curators in Norway.

Edited by Anne Szefer Karlsen.
Contributions by Andreas Hoffmann, Heather Jones, Martina Petrelli, Anne Szefer Karlsen, Lea Vene, Johanna Zanon.

Started in 1989 by designer and writer Robert Ford, THING magazine was the voice of the Queer Black music and art scene in the early 1990s. Ford and his editors were part of the burgeoning House music scene, which originated in Chicago’s Queer underground, and some of the top DJs and musicians from that time were featured in the magazine, including Frankie Knuckles, Gemini, Larry Heard, Rupaul, and Deee-Lite. THING published ten issues from 1989-1993, before it was cut short by Ford’s death from AIDS-related illness. All ten issues of THING are collected and published here for the first time.

As House music thrived, THING captured the multidisciplinary nature of the scene, opening its pages to a wide range of subjects: poetry and gossip, fiction and art, interviews and polemics. The HIV/AIDS crisis loomed large in its contents, particularly in the personal reflections and vital treatment resources that it published. An essay by poet Essex Hemphill was published alongside the gossip columnist Michael Musto and Rupaul dished wisdom alongside a diary from the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Joan Jett Blakk’s revolutionary presidential campaign is contained in these pages, as are some of the most underground, influential literary voices of the time, such as Dennis Cooper, Vaginal Davis, Gary Indiana, Marlon Riggs, David Wojnarowicz, and even David Sedaris.

THING was very much in dialogue with the club kids in New York and other Queer publishing ventures, but in many ways, it fostered an entirely unique perspective—one with more serious ambitions. In a moment when the gay community was besieged by the HIV/AIDS crisis and a wantonly cruel government, the influence and significance of this cheaply-produced newsprint magazine vastly exceeded its humble means, presenting a beautiful portrait of the ball and club culture that existed in Chicago with deep intellectual reflections. THING was a publication by and for its community and understood the fleetingness of its moment. To reencounter this work today, is to reinstate the Black voices who were so central to the history of HIV/AIDS activism and Queer and club culture, but which were often sidelined by white Queer discourse. In many ways, THING offered a blueprint for the fundamental role a magazine plays in bringing together a community, its tagline summing up the bold stakes of this important venture: “She Knows Who She Is.”

The magazine included contributions from Trent D. Adkins, Joey Arias, Aaron Avant Garde, Ed Bailey, Freddie Bain, Basscut, Belasco, Joan Jett Blakk, Simone Bouyer, Lady Bunny, Bunny & Pussy, Derrick Carter, Fire Chick, Chicklet, Stephanie Coleman, Bill Coleman, Lee Collins, Gregory Conerly, Mark Contratto, Dennis Cooper, Dorian Corey, Ed Crosby, The Darva, Vaginal Davis, Deee-Lite, Tor Dettwiler, Riley Evans, Evil, The Fabulous Pop Tarts, Mark Farina, Larry Flick, Robert Ford, Scott Free, David Gandy, Gemini, Gabriel Gomez, Roy Gonsalves, Chuck Gonzales, Tony Greene, André Halmon, Lyle Ashton Harris, Larry Heard, Essex Hemphill, Kathryn Hixson, Sterling Houston, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Gary Indiana, Candy J, Jamoo, Jazzmun, Gant Johnson, Owen Keehnen, Lady Miss Kier, Spencer Kincy, Iris Kit, Erin Krystle, Steve LaFreniere, Larvetta Larvon, Marc Loveless, Lypsinka, Malone, Marjorie Marginal, Terry A. Martin, Rodney McCoy Jr., Alan Miller, Bobby Miller, Michael Musto, Ultra Naté, Willi Ninja, Scott “Spunk” O’Hara, DeAundra Peek, Earl Pleasure, Marlon Riggs, Robert Rodi, Todd Roulette, RuPaul, Chantay Savage, David Sedaris, Rosser Shymanski, Larry Tee, Voice Farm, Lawrence D. Warren, Martha Wash, LeRoy Whitfield, Stephen Winter, David Wojnarowicz, and Hector Xtravaganza.