MAKING SOCIAL REALITIES WITH BOOKS-DAVID SENIOR

Access to Tools

David Senior, bibliotekar på Museum of Modern Art Library i New York præsenterer og diskuterer en række publikationer hentet fra The Whole Earth Catalog påbegyndt i 1968.

Ideen med The Whole Earth Catalog var at gøre en række værktøjer tilgængelige for de nyopståede modkulturelle samfund, ‘back-to-the-land’ husstande’ og idéudviklere indenfor teknologi, design og arkitektur. The Whole Earth Catalog udviklede sig hurtigt til at indeholde en bred vifte af referencer til nye boformer, bæredygtigt design, og eksperimentelle medier og fællesskaber.

I forbindelse med en udstilling på Museum of Modern Art i 2010 indledte David Senior en research i katalogets publikationer og søgte at sammenfatte projektets historiske linie, som det tog sig ud i årene fra 1968-1974.

I sin talk i rum46 vil David Senior reflektere over The Whole Earth Catalog’s fokus på eksperimentelle ideer indenfor design og teknologi samt dens historiske betydning for self-publishing/Do-It-Yourself kunst- og designprojekter.

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In 1968, Stewart Brand founded the Whole Earth Catalog. Brand’s goals were to make a variety of tools accessible to newly dispersed counterculture communities, back-to-the-land households, and innovators in the fields of technology, design, and architecture, and to create a community meeting-place in print. The catalogue quickly developed into a wide-ranging reference for new living spaces, sustainable design, and experimental media and community practices. After only a few years of publication it exploded in popularity, becoming a formidable cultural phenomenon. Books, selected and described by the editorial staff and organized in sections titled Understanding Whole Systems, Shelter and Land Use, Communication, and Community, were the primary resources the Whole Earth Catalog offered.

For a 2010 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, David Senior surveyed these publications that were listed in the Whole Earth Catalog and also, generally summarized the history of the catalogue project over the course of the years 1968-1974. Senior’s talk at rum46 will describe some highlights from his research for this exhibition project and also, reflect on the WEC’s focus on experimental ideas in design and technology as well as its importance within an historical lineage of self-publishing/DIY art and design projects. Informed by the writing of Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller and Norbert Weiner, the Whole Earth Catalog was a new media experiment that pragmatically attempted to provide a new kind of information service for its readership, who in turn participated in and informed the development of the project. This kind of feedback loop between the producers of the publication and theiraudience will be explored and highlighted through examples from the publication’s history.

* David Senior is the Bibliographer at The Museum of Modern Art Library, where he manages collection development, including the library’s artists’ books collection. He also curates exhibitions – most recently ‘Please Come to the Show’ (2013), ‘Millennium Magazines’ (2012), ‘Access to Tools: Publications from the Whole Earth Catalog, 1968–74? (2011) and ‘Scenes from Zagreb: Artists’ Publications of the New Art Practice’ (2011) – and the annual pro­gram of events for the New York and Los Angeles Art Book Fairs. His writing has appeared in Frieze, Bulletins of the Serving Library, A Prior, Art Papers and C Magazine, and since 2008 he has published an artist’s book series through the New York Art Book Fair

Ovennævnte talk er den sjette i en serie af foredrag og udvalgte workshops med titlen MAKING SOCIAL REALITIES WITH BOOKS organiseret af Brett Bloom, Det Jyske Kunskakademi og rum46. MAKING SOCIAL REALITIES WITH BOOKS er desuden en del af ROPOPU – Room for Potential Publishing: et netværk af kulturkatørerer, selorganisered bog- og publikationsudgivelser.