Information

X Marks the Bökship is a bookshop and project space for independent publishers in London run by Eleanor Vonne Brown. It specialises in small press publications by artists and designers. It promotes contemporary publishing activity through Book Launches, events and production resources that bring together individual practitioners to create a local publishing community.

More information at http://bokship.org/xaudio.html

The Cast of the Crystal Set

18 June–August 2015

Recordings by artists, audio publishing

The Crystal Set is an evolving structure oscillating between a sound booth for recording and a stage for live listening events. This summer it will host a series of recording sessions, workshops and broadcasts from a cast of artists & publishers including: Test Centre, Paul Buck, Marcia Farquhar, Disembodied Voice Research Group, Drawing Room Confessions, Jenny Moore, Maria Guggenbichler & Amal Alhaag, Chris Wood, Typography Summer School, Sinkhole & more.

Summer Events

July 2015

Drawing Room Confessions is Publisher of the Month

Saturday 4 July 2015, 5–8pm

Drawing Room Confessions is a printed journal named after a parlour game played by Marcel Proust, the Surrealists and others. Each book from the series uses exchanges and playful games to create a unique portrait of an individual artist.

Five different sections: The Egoist, The Blind Man, Two to Tango, For the Time Being and La Madeleine, plus the occasional appearance of The Double Dealer and Ekphrasis, comprise the Rules of the Game, which are the same in each issue. What changes are the players, or interviewers, who open each round of conversation with the featured artist and who come from a wide range of fields.Drawing Room Confessions is created by Manuela Ribadeneira and Vincent Honoré with Benjamin Reichen. Design by Åbäke.

During July the full set of Drawing Room Confessions will be exhibited at X Marks the Bökship accompanied by the start of a collection of visual footnotes illustrating the complex referencing and citation that appears in each edition. Giving centre stage to the marginalia, the selected footnotes chosen by the publisher and distributor are represented by objects and prints and offer an entry point into the publications, which consciously choose to exclude images, and add another layer or player to the game.

Drinks will be served from 5pm and an audio recording of the transcript between Richard Wentworth and Tom Sachs in conversation will be played at 7pm.

www.drawingroomconfessions.com

“You can't win them all, ladies and gentlemen: Quality”

Wednesday 8 July 2015

Jenny Moore & Guests

Live Radio Show, 7.30pm

You can’t win them all, ladies and gentlemen is a live radio show produced by Jenny Moore and a growing cast of contributors. With the episodes Happiness, Expectations, and Misunderstandings under our belt – the fourth episode will be made using Quality as our query.

For the Quality show, the recently-assembled You can’t win them all house band – “House Music” – will enter The Crystal Set to write and record an album in three days, performing it live on the fourth day in front of a live studio audience. Formed through interpretation, improvisation, desire and pressure, this experiment will finish off the first season of You can’t win them all ladies and gentlemen; it is a peak, a track, a jingle, a trip.

Good hard quality exists when demands

and expectations are met on a

concrete, technical level.

Good soft quality exists when demands

and expectations are met on

a human/emotional level.

Get rid of this one-man-band.

Get a synthesizer and make a band with people.

Make songs and play them out.

“House Music” is Jenny Moore, James Ferris, Holly Pester, Simon Clark, and Steven Ounanian. House Music will be recording from 5–7 July, and will do something in public at 7:30pm on 8 July. All welcome.

*Disclaimer: this press release may not accurately represent the outcome of this event. While we aim for quality, we cannot guarantee that expectations will be met or that we have not already misunderstood each other, however we do hope that you will leave happy. Food will be present to aid this.

Bookable Studio Sessions

From Wednesday 15–Saturday 18 July

((( Recording )))

• Wednesday 15 July, 10–1pm
• Wednesday 15 July, 2–5pm
• Thursday 16 July, 10–1pm
• Thursday 16 July, 2–5pm
• Friday 17 July,10–1pm
• Friday 17 July, 2–5pm
• Saturday 18 July, 10–1pm
• Saturday 18 July, 2–5pm

Typography Summer School

Monday 20–Friday 24 July

DJ Workshop for Women

Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 July

Workshop with Maria Guggenbichler & Amal Alhaag, Sat 6–9pm & Sun 12–6pm

August 2015

Sinkhole is Publisher of the Month

Super Woofer

Saturday 1 August

Sound Fair & Summer Party, 1pm–11pm

Summer Events

June 2015

Man Made Structures and The Disembodied Voice

Thursday 18 June 2015

((Recording, 10–4pm))

Public Talk, 6–8pm

The Disembodied Voice presents an evening of presentations exploring relationships between architecture and objects and the voice. The event will include works in process by members of The Disembodied Voice research group and a lecture by Michiel Huijben titled ‘Becoming a Building’, ending with an open discussion.

The Disembodied Voice is a collaborative research project which sets out to investigate the relationship between the disembodied voice and contemporary visual culture. The group includes Maia Conran, Patrick Coyle, Karen Di Franco and Kihlberg & Henry.

Michiel Huijben–Becoming a Building From the verticality of the body as resembled in Greek columns, to people eating and dating walls and other built structures, this talk will propose that buildings share more similarities with us (and vice versa) than we are usually inclined to think. Taking examples from the history of art, architecture, mythology and life in general, it will suggest a number of ways for you to become more like a building, by focusing on the relations and similarities between human bodies and the material environment, and, specifically, to buildings.

Michiel Huijben is an artist, currently based in London, where he is studying the MA Architectural History, Theory and Interpretation at the Cass. Michiel is also co-founder of the blog pietmondriaan.com.

HAVE A NO: Spread the Spoken Word

Thursday 25 June 2015

Experimental poetry and performance evening.

Live Event, 7–10pm

HAVE A NO & spoken word club event showcasing the written and performed work of their group of artist, artisans, partisans, performers and parasites: books, beer and experimental spoken word.

Dial Stories

Saturday 27 June 2015

One day workshop and participatory performance for spatial creative writing and FM radio.

12–7pm

Sound artist Chris Wood is running a workshop on Saturday 27 June where you can write and record a piece of work and then have it broadcast on a short range FM transmitter placed around Mile End park and the canal. He will provide prompts for writing based on the space and history of the site, record your work in the Crystal Set studio and loop it on a transmitter. You can then use one of our FM radios to navigate the space around the gallery through your stories. We'll end the day with a collective radio performance for 10 radio receivers.

Limited to 10 participants. Free. To reserve a space write to eleanor@bokship.org

Paul Buck's Pressed Curtains tapes

Tuesday 30 June 2015

Test Centre Launch and Listening Event, 7–9pm

In the 1970s Paul Buck initiated a series of cassettes relating to his magazines Curtains and Twisted Wrist. Although only a couple were released, many more were recorded and gathered by Buck, or given to him. On the 30th of June Test Centre will launch its box set of 10 tapes, including material by Eric Mottram, Bill Griffiths, and Kathy Acker.

Test Centre are Publisher of the Month at X Marks the Bökship throughout June 2015. Test Centre is an independent publishing house and record label with an interest in the spoken and written word. Based in Hackney, East London, it was established in 2011 by Will Shutes and Jess Chandler. A selection of their books and records will be on display and for sale in the bookshop.

May 2015

First Thursday: Champagne Socialist Bar

Thursday 7 May 2015, 6–9pm

Champagne Socialist Bar: First Thursday at Matt's Gallery and Bökship late night opening.

Pop corks in the street with us to mark the launch of our new billboard and the start of the election race. Whizz round the Matt Stoke's Madman in a Lifeboat exhibition, then nip off to VOTE.

Artist Novels: The Book Lovers Publication

Saturday 16 May 2015, 7pm–9pm

Book Launch with David Maroto & Joanna Zielińska in conversation with Gareth Long and Lindsay Seers.

This publication is devoted to the phenomenon of the artist novel, and whether it can be considered to be a medium in its own right within the visual arts. Visual artists create different strategies to integrate their novels into their practice. Introducing traits that are particular to narrative literature into the visual arts implies the accentuation of some features over others, such as narration, fiction, identification, and the act of reading and its protracted engagement, as well as distribution in public space. An artist’s approach comes fundamentally from the visual arts. The creation of an artist novel doesn’t differ from any other artwork. Both processes feed into each other as they evolve within the same body of works. Thanks to the contributions of a selected group of artists, writers, curators, and scholars this publication strives to demonstrate that literature, when treated by visual artists, can take place well beyond the space of the book.

Texts by Roland Barthes, Liam Gillick, Kenneth Goldsmith, Tom McCarthy, Ingo Niermann, Seth Price, Seth Siegelaub, et al.; excerpts from artist novels by Guy de Cointet, Henry Joseph Darger, Yayoi Kusama, Jill Magid, et al.

Published by Sternberg Press and Cricoteka, 2015

Price €25 / £18

www.thebooklovers.info

INTERSTITIAL ZONE

On display at X Marks the Bökship Wednesday 20–Saturday 23 May 2015, 12–6pm

Curators’ workshop, Thursday 21 May 2015, 4–6pm

INTERSTITIAL ZONE is cross-practice research that uses the concept of the archive as a motivation. This project will unfold at The Showroom gallery and X Marks the Bökship. It aims to generate a core of knowledge through a series of conversations with people from different professions related to the archive and a group of images chosen by them to represent these discussions. This material will be presented in the form of a display, and activated through ‘readings’ by the audience, the artist Girolamo Marri and the curators.

Contributors: Ferran Adrià, Franko B, Graciela Carnevale, Linne Ellegard, Carla di Falco, Aurélien Froment, Naiza Khan, Henry Lydiate, Bartomeu Marí, Rosell Messeguer, Gregor Muir, Dominique Paini, Lia, Perjovschi, Pepe Ribas, Pamela Sepúlveda, Dr. Claudia Wedepohl, Nayia Yiakoumaki