report

Silvio Lorusso

SILVIO LORUSSO, July 2nd, 15:30

**0. introduction **

Expub is a consortium between Nero Editions (Rome), Institute for Networked Cultures (Amsterdam), Aksioma (Ljubljana), and Echo Chamber (Brussels) for a biennial of experiments on new publishing formats. The idea is to bring to light knowledge and practices developed by members over the past years in an industry, that of publishing, which continues to expand beyond the classic terms of traditional linear publishing. Through events, public programming, print and digital publications, .expub aims to create an operational model for Expanded Publishing.** **

+chloe to take notes

You are partecipating in an expert sprint, a seires of 11 interviews with experts, artists, editors to understand the whys, hows, whos, and whats of expanded publishing. That is how the interviews will be structured, allowing 10 minute for each, with a moment of open discussion. The other interviewees are Clusterduck, Silvio Lorusso, Thomas Spies, Irene de Craen, Geoff Cox, Open Source Publishing, Yancey Strickler, Kenny Goldsmith, Dušan Barok, Caroline Busta. We are recording this with plans of creating a hybrid report, and eventually a toolkit or publication.

Designer by training, artist, author

started in printing on demand at the INC, which led to interest in paltformisation/enclosure of publishing (gafam), phd in venice on experimental publishing -> post digital ? , publishing lab initiative

1. Why: Politics of Publishing (Mission/Theory/References/Ideals/Goals) - 10 mins - 15:40-15:50

*Your phd project was about post-digital publishing practices, what would you change now, what didn’t materialize, what was missing? *

It’s a question of time.

Archive is highly detailed around every project, which is time consuming

What is often forgotten in exp publishing, is the scarcity of sources

Leaner archive of lab library of the printed web - Paul Soulellis, physical archive

https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/45257/

internet archive

*Entreprecariat, how did the situation changed since you first published, and what is the role of small publishers structure? *

The question of struggling comes at the same time with abandoning and exit. Is leaving the creative, publishing and artistic world a form of resistance, as it has been similarly framed in contemporay art with artists such as Lutz Bacher, Stanley Brouwn, Christopher D’Arcangelo, Bas Jan Ader etc?

non-volatile publishing vs. lasting, lasting =/ printed, why do we take printed + distributed book as more seriously?

small pool of options, becoming smaller, primary concern,

forgetting small projects, unless they translate into traditionsl printed form
spector books on print on demand

The degree of volatility is a problem. Printed/distributed (! in a shop, with ISBN) people take this stuff seriously.

negotiation between small and big institutions, bigger one creating space for the other even if they might not want to

Triangle: 1- the author, 2- the small publisher, 3- the institution.

Fast publishing

https://silviolorusso.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/p-dpa_01.png

2. How: Infrastructures of Publishing (Tools, workflows, operations, (revenue) models for Writing, Editing, Printing, Distributing, Promoting, etc ) - 10 mins - 15:50-16:00

How is an editorial product born, developed, and published within your practice?

What does your workflow look like?

How do you ensure or work towards a sustainable practice?

North-South divide - how do you experience this?

in the past Silvio was most interested in weird expertiments, but now most of these are forgotten, unless they are translated into a book. The question is: how to make a lasting publication? The printed distrubted book (in a shop with an ISBN) has more authority and is taken more seriously. The experimental question for Silvio is the question of sustainability. Not only financial sustainability. It’s about other resources than justr money. Also time and access too. And they are in conversation with bigger insitutions.

Release Early, Release Often.

Blogs are polaroids of what is to come

Release Early, Release Often. A poloroid of a publocation to come: more variations of a text. As a blog, paper, zine, book, etc.

event engagements are paid better than written objects

cultural organizers have to understand that with event s you are sustaining their writing practice, so how can they facilitate this? by not creating burden on the author, he has a tech rider/list of demands >> THIS IS A TOOL -> Maybe we can ask another question on this / if he has more > this was a “fictional” piece - you can ask about the role of writing on this?

difference between NL, italy, portugal

he is concerned, he is critical of publishing funds in NL, changing in funding because of politics

the margins / periphery have developed a pride in their authonomy

3. Who: Community of Publishing (Network, Collaborations, Readers, (sustainable) engagement) - 10 mins - 16:00-16:10

*How have you created your professional network? - the idea of the post-individual - Yancey Strickler - the “scenious” (Marta) *

Who is your audience? How do you engage them?a

scenes, groups, conformations exist, but who the actor is that pays the pills is an individual

especially in writing, we do it individually, from pov of practical existance,

nourishing communitties should not become romantic

i belong to many different ones, collectives are weak7 are formed and destroyed,

the individual wins, realist understanding

most people write as individuals: this point of view is important, practically speaking

collectives are formed and die again within a couple of yours: realistiscally individuals win (unfornunately)

nourishing communities without the romantic vail

4. Open Discussion - 15 mins, 16:10 - 16:25

ilan: abandoning as resistance?

Ilan: Exiting the publishing world? Would that be an option in the future?

silvio - jumping ship as a gesture - int he arts, academia… positive side is to get back the “reverance” towards institutions

Also from academia, not just the art world.

loss of reverance to institutions e.g. academia - does not work for them - worst place to put out ideas e.g. susan sontag’s idea

patreon- for that to be viable you need fanbase, which also limits you in the type of content you are producing

the undercommons - stay in institutions and you steal from them in order to pursue your goals

https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf
When you manage to actually exit: it is an uncertain path.

negotiation between abandoning and staying - finding in the book “the undercommons” - “Stealing” from the instiutions -

https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf

Marta: the list/work to not burden the author: tell us more. because we want to know more about ‘tools’/practices.

https://silviolorusso.com/publication/cultural-industry-memo/

silivio: comission - fictional memos - imagine a giant company called “cultural industry”

[these guidelines seem to practice/advocate for a radical transparency]

one point: be honest about fees from the start (this is important in the micro economies of small gigs)

Ilan: we are sort of both victims and responsible for entrataining abusive system within culture industry - is being critical enough?

thank you for having this reading of the book, we need to consider ourselves as part of it, as responsible, small/medium artists are worse actors than companies in terms of bad practices and exploitation, criticality is not enough, it is not a tool of change -> professionalisation of institutional critique

culpability, call out culture > obstracize the toxic actor e.g. excel sheet with terrible internships experience -> shame is a powerful power of change, it aknsowedges responsability

critical statement stay in a very general terms, speaking of systems and institution

ciritcality is not enough because its not a tool of change - also seen in the “undercommons” - its a form of instiutional critique, which is again giving power ot the instiution

criticality - we speak of the system - whereas the call out culture ostrasizes the “bad actor” > example, excel sheets with experiences - dangerous but maybe a strategy?

shame is a powerful source of change: it challenges the autonomy of actors

5. What: Future of Publishing (Defining and Speculating together on Expanded publishing) - 10 mins

What are the urgencies in Publishing? What are the more urgent aspects that need to be addressed in the future of publishing?

disclaimers: what he calls publishing is not an industry, do other jobs and end up putting a lot of efforts and end up creating things

you cannot call it an industry, maybe its like minded willing people, so the mission is for these people to keep doing what they do without burning out

language has been consuemd by the art world -> care was a tragic disease for the art world, it removed all the power away —> helping out is better than caring for

helping yourself by being helped out

future: a term that has been manipulated too much/ preferable futures is an obsession and it is a trap, –> it’s an other way of calling the present, fabricated urgency of thinking about teh future, we are always pushed to think of the future (also at the cinema, etc.),

future orientedness is a burden, weights us down

urgency =/ future

dont stepnd to much time to define the future: it is fabricated, it is snot an urgency
“Call it future, call it present, I don’t care.” - it wastes enegry

Triangle of negotiation: Author/Cultural producer>Small institution>Big Institution

Publishing early and release often

Publishing is community

lorenzo: my work as a publisher is constant effort in creating a community

publishing remains community based, resiliance of traditional books is based on that, so is the triangle of negotiation of Author/Cultural producer>Small institution>Big Institution, etc.

intwerviews scare him, he sharpens messages too much to make it pointy, which doesn’t happen in writing

he does believe in strength of ties, of small publishers

the selfless thankless job of small publisher of putting in front the community without the ego reward of the author for example

would be nice if authors was part of this system or if they tried it a bit

very often the publisher is literally just one person, one committed individual

all modern digital infrastructure relies on a project some random person in nebraska has been thanklessly mainting since 2003 -> how to take care of that little piece

–> ilan: every one of us is a little person in nebraska

(see meme)

he considers himself a small publisher - like with the journal at the Lusofona Uni Centre for other worlds - https://buttondown.email/otherworlds

can we try defining community: what if people who buy books dont read them for example? It becomes a abstract and immaterial concept

?https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

community is based on something so immaterial

[maybe the book is just an excuse to connect?]

collective panic attack

Silvio: community is a big network of similar nodes? picture of a graph?

it hides more than it reveals -> facelessness

other ways of conceptualizing this: individual nodes are countable, both passive and active,

[marta: https://otherinter.net/research/squad-wealth/]

what upset him / annoyed him was the depiction of the institutionalized individual -> doesn’t aknowledge that you can’t survive without the wage cuckness, to check validity of their claims

tactical carlessness, irreverence

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241853524_The_murmuring_of_the_artistic_mulitude_Global_Art_Memory_and_Post-Fordism

lorenzo: community can be a collective imaginary that impacts reality?

we have to defend ourselves against the powerful techs producing certain imaginaries

scene, community, gang, etc: tip: https://valiz.nl/publicaties/the-murmuring-of-the-artistic-multitude