Julian Stallabrass

Pauline Van Mourik Broekman

Niru Ratnam

Locus Solus: Site, Identity and Technology in Contemporary Art borrows its title from a book by Raymond Roussel, first published in 1914. The literal meaning of the phrase "Locus Solus" is unique or solitary place. In Roussel's book, a brilliant but perhaps deranged scientist pursues fantastical technological pursuits, including the re-animation of the dead and various projects which automate the making of works of art. Locus+, whose curatorial practice provides the content of Locus Solus are considered here through sub-headings dealing respectively with the power within boundaries and the subsequent specificity of site; identity and its demarcation; the crossing of borders by technology and its mutation. 60 b/w illustrations

Site, Identity, Technology in Contemporary Art

Locus Solus

Simon Worthington

Damian Jaques

In the early 1990s, long before the Internet became an integral part of life, a handful of pioneering magazines took it upon themselves to imagine the web into existence. Using fiction, interviews, speculative theory and experimental graphic design, these titles helped create a lexicon and iconography every bit as powerful as the architecture of the World Wide Web. London-based Mute occupied a central position here, wielding an influence vastly disproportionate to its size. This book presents a full overview of the magazine over a decade, showing its entire output - logos, covers and spreads. Using generous illustrations and in-depth captions, it details recurrent graphic themes and places Mute's evolution in perspective.

Mute Magazine Graphic Design

Josephine Berry Slater

Dedicated to an analysis of culture and politics after the net, Mute magazine has, since its inception in 1994, consistently challenged the grandiose claims of the digital revolution. This anthology offers an expansive collection of some of Mute's finest articles and is thematically organised around key contemporary issues: Direct Democracy and its Demons; Net Art to Conceptual Art and Back; I, Cyborg - Reinventing the Human; of Commoners and Criminals; Organising Horizontally; Art and/against Business; Under the Net - City and Camp; Class and Immaterial Labour; The Open Work. The result is both an impressive overview and an invaluable sourcebook of contemporary culture in its widest sense

Pauline Van Mourik Broekman

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