In 2012, Primary Information will launch a dedicated Artists' Writings series, in which we will work with artists to develop new publications around their writings. This series will be ongoing and our goal is to publish four new books in this series during 2012. While some of our past publications have reprinted or compiled artists' writings, we are now in a position to support and provide resources for contemporary artists who are actively writing as part of their practice.

We are currently working with Lutz Bacher, Florian Hecker and Fia Backström on the first three titles in this series. Lutz Bacher’s publication Do You Love Me? will be published in late Winter, with Florian Hecker’s following in Spring.

Do You Love Me? is a publication formed out of Lutz Bacher’s video of the same name, in which the artist interviews colleagues, friends, and family about herself, asking them what it is they love about her work, and more generally what they think about her. The publication takes the form of a transcript of selected interviews interwoven with images of her artwork from the 70s to the present as well as photos, letters, and various other ephemera. Do You Love Me?  is printed in black and white and will span 440 pages.

Florian Hecker's publication will feature a radically new form of documentation and typotranslation of four sound pieces that dramatize the phenomenon of Auditory Chimaeras. Originally developed at MIT by Bertrand Delgutte, Senior Research Scientist at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, the concept of the Auditory Chimaeras allows one to explore the relation between pitch perception and sound localization as they reveal a possible acoustic basis for the hypothesized 'what' and 'where' pathways in the auditory cortex. The concept of Chimerization takes a fresh and novel approach on the mapping and transferring of sonic qualities between different sound sources. While sound morphing has a tradition within the field of electroacoustic music, this rigorous scientific approach--the mapping and exchange of the phenomenal features of different sounds--opens the 'phenomenological gap' within the field of psychoacoustics while providing an intense experiential notion.

The publication will be comprised of four chapters devoted to four separate works that will be transcribed in part through typotranslation,  a typographic process that takes up the idea of an exchange of phenomenal features as a Chimaerization of typography that the artist is currently developing at MIT. This publication will incorporate Donald E. Knuth's Metafont systems and will be designed by NORM. An essay by Iranian philosopher and writer Reza Negarestani will also be produced. 

Fia Backström's publication will be based on three new texts on art and language.

About the Artists:

Lutz Bacher has been making diverse conceptual works since the 1970s that span photography, videos, sculpture and installation. She has recently shown at Cabinet Gallery in London   and has  been the subject of museum survey shows at Kunstverein Munich, PS1 Center for Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis.

In his sound installations, live performances and publications, Florian Hecker deals with specific compositional developments of post-war modernity, electro-acoustic music as well as other, non-musical disciplines.  Solo exhibitions include MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Chisenhale Gallery, London, Bawag Contemporary, Vienna and Sadie Coles HQ London. Recent performances include Push and Pull, A two-day performance event, Tate Modern, London, Install, Tramways, Glasgow, UK, No night No day, in collaboration with Cerith Wyn Evans, 53rd Venice Biennial, Italy.

Fia Backström represented Sweden at the 2011 Venice Biennale. She recently presented a project at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Misty Harbor – At Your Leisure, which was commissioned as part of the museum’s Nine Screens program. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; the ICA, London, White Columns, New York. She was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Backström's writings, essays, and interviews have been published in Artforum, Modern Painters, North Drive Press, Pacemaker and Art on Paper, among others.