Impulse Magazine Archive Of Publications.

Volume 9 Number 1, Spring 1981

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Shelagh Alexander and Judith Doyle.

Contributing Editors:

New York:

Lisa Baumgarder.

Design:

Shelagh Alexander.

Design Assistance:

Ken Baird.

Advertising:

Tony Hardingham.

Distribution:

Karl Jirgens.

Typography:

Alphabets.

Table of Contents:

Andrew James Paterson, 'Industrial Overload'; Anne Milne, 'Considering Christian Television'; Dawn Eagle, 'Theory Of Appearance'; Chris Dewdney, 'Case A-7'; Matt Cohen, 'In Search of Inspiration'; Donna Lypchuk, 'Rebel Without A Car'; Judith Doyle, 'Fading'; Steven Davey, 'Fads Fade Orchestral Manoeuvres'; Krzysztof Wodiczko, 'Proposed Projection'; Tom Dean, 'Ramps'; Vincent Tangredi, 'The Campanile'; Brian Boigon, 'A Mirror In The Window'; Lorne Fromer, 'Russ Myer'; Kaz, 'Untitled'; Barbara Astman, 'Untitled'; David Buchan, 'Out Of This World!'; Denis Bouchard, 'Hair Wear'; Maurizio Nannucci, 'All That Happens Goes'; Dennis Oppenheim, 'Thought Projectile Factories'; Gerard Malanga, 'Shark Bait'.

Editorial:

Q: Can you describe the beginnings of the magazine?

A: Impulse was founded in February 1971 by Peter Such - a literary magazine publishing new work as opposed to reviews and commentary. It was small, historically important, an outlet for new and established writers.

Q: Who were you then?

A: I was a young writer, a contributor to the first issue of Impulse. In 1973, I became associate editor - a collaboration between my magazine Porcepic and Impulse. I resigned shortly thereafter when Impulse completely absorbed Porcepic - it appeared merely to be an issue of Impulse.

Q: How did you eventually become the editor?

A: In 1974, Impulse published a double issue of a book I'd edited, W)Here? The Other Canadian Poetry. At this point, I literally had become the editor, so Peter Such gave me the magazine.

Q: After this issue the magazine appears to have changed drastically.

A: The next issue was a monograph of photographs by Fletcher Starbuck. The literary readership hated it. I woke one morning to a radio interviewer's phone call; I told him to phone back after I'd had a cup of coffee. I spent the morning listening to Impulse being attacked on the radio.

Q: Some of your issues aren't even recognizable as magazines.

A: From 1975 to 1978, Impulse was a magazine of changing formats, an artists magazine, publishing new works produced for magazine format. In 1976 a long-playing record was released as an issue. In 1978 the magazine was a super-8 movie, Einstein's Joke, and a "cinefiche" of the movie. Although conceptually one of the stronger issues, the microfiche succeeded in destroying the remainder of our market. I still don't know five people with microfiche viewers. With each issue, I would try to change, to surprise, to destroy everyone's expectations. After four years of re-defining what could be called a magazine, I felt the most radical change I could undertake would be to standardize the format.

Q: Is that when the square format appeared?

A: Yes, with the help of M.A. Hanet, Impulse became square and glossy, employing the grid as a motif of organization. The design was simple and flat. Our basic editorial aim remained the same, a commitment to publishing new works by artists and writers. Throughout the past four issues, Shelagh Alexander's design sensibility is pre-eminent; now as a designer and an editor she is involved in every aspect of the magazine. Judith Doyle, an editor for the past three issues, has worked to develop our text. I am now publisher, general overseer and frequent contributor.

Q: Has the magazine changed much lately?

A: Our concerns are consistent; Impulse changes with the changing interests of its contributors. If we didn't change there wouldn't be any sense in continuing to publish the magazine.

Q: Happy birthday.

A: After ten years, thanks.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 9 Number 2, Fall 1981

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Shelagh Alexander, and Judith Doyle.

New York Editors:

Lisa Baumgardner.

Editorial Assistance:

Philip Monk and Lynne Fernie.

Design:

Shelagh Alexander and Ken Baird.

Advertising:

Tony Hardingham.

Typography:

Alphabets Mascot:

Spot B.

Table of Contents:

Insert, 'Bikini girl #8'; James Dunn, 'Canada's Wonderland'; Judith Doyle, 'A Chronology of Censorship in Ontario'; Anne Milne, 'Notes on Pay TV in Canada'; Andrew James Paterson, Fred Gaysek and Eldon Garnet, 'Kraftwerk'; Peter Noble, 'Lounge Lizard Lingo'; Lori Spring, 'In Defence of Movie Pleasure'; Dennis Pike, 'Special FX'; Judith Doyle, 'Transcript'; Tom Sherman, 'Inside The Cultural Industrial Compound'; A.S.A Harrison, 'The Mechanic'; George Legrady; Nancy Johnson, 'My Superego Gives Me Choreography'; Brian Boigon, 'The limits Of a Territory'; James Dunn, 'Family Picnic'.

Editorial:

It was a hot summer. The world appeared to be falling apart at the seams. One night everyone left their designer's knives on the light table to hang out on the roof and watch a 55% eclipse of an almost full moon. We fought. Shouted. Punched. But working in the heat is never easy at the best of times. Scrambling in the face of every obstacle, including a national postal strike, our contributors showed their fortitude, ability and creativity providing us with the material for yet another, shall I say it, hot issue.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 9 Numbers 3 + 4, Spring 1982

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Shelagh Alexander, and James Dunn.

Contributing Editors:

Judith Doyle (Toronto) and Lisa Baumgardner (New York)

Editorial Assistant:

Robbyn Grant.

Design:

Shelagh Alexander.

Advertising:

Robin Wall.

Typography:

Alphabets.

Mascot Trainee:

Severin.

Table of Contents:

Frank Geiger, 'Illusion of Survival'; Joan (Adaire) Brouwer, 'Release and Detonation'; Susan Britton, 'Fiscal Dread'; Comite De Defensa, 'Uruguay Prison'; Caroline Simmons, 'Herpes'; Peter Wronski, 'TV: The Semiotic Conspiracy'; Peter Wronski, 'Fear's Invention'; Kenneth Decker, 'Where Seldom is "Herd"'; Lisa Baumgardner, 'Diary Excerpt'; Eduardo Galeano, 'Of Virgins and Saints'; Lynne Tillman, 'Diary of a Masochist'; Karl Jirgens, 'A Bedtime Story'; John Wadsworth, 'Stars False/Stars Fallen'; Dotty Attie; Michael Merrill, 'Birthday'; James Dunn/Eldon Garnet, 'David Cronenberg'; James Dunn, 'Topology of a Monster: Jaws'; Gord Smith, 'Anatomy of a Special Effects Technician'; James Wines, 'Fear of the Albany Mall'; Keen, 'Span'; Andrew James Paterson, 'Glenn Branca'; P. L. Noble, 'Jules Baptiste'.

Editorial:

Patiently we waited to be scared. Obligingly, the images and stories poured in - grotesque faces, contorted bodies, distorted situations, gruesome accidents. Nothing scared us. It was all too contrived. Looking for images of the Hiroshima aftermath, a librarian asked: "You're not going to say anything bad about the bomb, are you?" We realized that we did not really fear extraterrestrial invasion or supernatural possession. We discovered that our fears were much closer to home. We fear the world as it is. We fear ourselves as we are. We no longer have enough time to speculate and anticipate future fears. In our attempts to create a world in which nothing "bad" could happen, we have created a world which is almost unfit for human habitation. "Of course you know that millions of lives were saved by the bomb," added the librarian. We did not fear her; we feared the way she had so conveniently neglected to learn from the past. One bomb, one city.

The Editors would like to thank the following people for giving their time and energy: Andy Paterson, Amy Wilson, Kenny Baird, Tim Jocelyn, Leighton Barrett, Michael Woods, Aaron Milrad, Carol Off, and especially The Cameron (Herb, Paul, Debbie) for providing Impulse with an office when our furnace blew up.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 10 Number 1, Summer 1982

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, James Dunn and Judith Doyle.

Contributing Editor:

Lisa Baumgardner (New York).

Editorial Assistants:

Joan (Adair) Brouwer, Ken Baird and Robbyn Grant.

Art Direction:

Ken Baird.

Office:

Joan (Adair) Brouwer.

Advertising:

Robbyn Grant.

Typography:

Alphabets.

Mascot Designate:

Severin.

Table of Contents:

Stanley McDowell, 'Nuclear Strategy/Political Will'; Elspeth Sage and Joan (Adair) Brouwer, 'The Model Worker'; Brother Martin Shea/Judith Doyle, 'Appropriation of Suffering'; Paul Virilio/Sylvère Lotringer, 'The Suicidal State'; John Bentley Mays, 'The Victims' Ball'; Andrew Czeszak, 'TBDF: Transborder Data Flow'; Todd Grimson, 'Amnesia'; Lisa Bloomfield, 'False Sites and Complexes'; Robert Cumming, 'Drawings'; Eldon Garnet, 'Privacy'; Ken Baird and Joan (Adair) Brouwer, 'D. A. F.'; James Dunn, 'The Death of Canadian Cinema'; Anne Milne, 'Insomniac: An Interview with Jeff Silverman'.

Editorial:

There is a hail of events under which every person stands unsheltered, unable to command the storm's withdrawal. What minor protections we construct are ephemeral shacks against the constant onslaught. I have no pacifist's dream of an end to hostility. Dreams must be made by muscle. Action must be answered by better action. Deconstruction by construction. When the enemy attacks you must induce him to turn the weapon against himself. All the power which stands against you is your potential power. You stand as the transformer, where power against weakness becomes power against power; where power becomes a relinquishing, becomes weakness, becomes weakness against weakness, becomes agreed. Running for cover is no solution. Safety can only be achieved by turning the storm back on itself.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 10 Number 2, Winter 1982

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Judith Doyle and Joan (Adair) Brouwer.

Contributing Editors:

James Dunn (Toronto) and Lisa Baumgardner (New York).

Associate Editors:

Ken Baird and Carolyn White.

Art Direction:

Ken Baird.

Office:

Joan (Adair) Brouwer.

Advertising:

Lola Boomer.

Legal Counsel:

Gerald Owen.

Mascot (Deceased):

Severin, Two seasons, eaten by wolves.

Table of Contents:

David Clarkson, 'Labyrinth'; Caro, 'Bouzillage'; Margaret Dragu and A.S.A. Harrison, 'Vice'; James Dunn, 'Psychiatry as Social Control'; Jack Scrivener, 'Lineation'; Boyd Webb, 'Sleuth'; Interview with Lothar Lambert; Ken Decker, 'absTraction'; Susan Britton, 'Frontier Life'; Gerald Owen, 'Pseudolexicon'; Sylvère Lotringer and Felix Guattari, 'The New Alliance; Interview with John Kenneth Galbraith'; Interview with David Cunningham.

Editorial:

Forces press against. We resist and become tired. The forces continue. If these were positive and not oppressive, all would seem well. We are in the winter of 1982, and are to say the least, not overjoyed. The suggestion of change is met with argument. Opposition is announced in the name of morality, law, pragmatism, the status quo.

Against his complaints and better wishes he's pushed into a cage, shoved rudely into a car and carried 200 kilometers into the forest. Confused. Frightened. Arriving at a shack beside a swamp. Cowering as all senses of the environment read as hostility. He hears them drinking, laughing, eating. Smells the smoke from the fire but is too far from the flame to be comforted. The next day at the first opportunity he runs blindly into the woods. Wild without direction. Escaping. By nightfall completely lost, completely unbounded. Not the faintest sound of their presence. His freedom has been short lived; the cage is now undefined distance and direction.

Weary, we mythologize a sense of ever more vague potential, but this promise could shift as easily into destruction as creation. Our myths become shapeless. Exhausted, curled into himself for warmth. The strange animal odor of fear fills his air.

Every day, it is necessary to deal with the spectre of vague forces. But eventually that which looms as opposition must be named or measured. The common scales of measurement are now exhausted and rationalize repression. A new set of archetypal positions and actions must be formulated and articulated.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 10 Number 3, Spring/Summer 1983

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White and Judith Doyle.

Contributing Editors:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York) and Joan (Adair) Brouwer (London).

Art Direction:

Ken Baird.

Business:

Carolyn White.

Advertising:

Cindi Emond.

Legal Council:

Gerald Owen.

Mascot:

Bunny.

Table of Contents:

Terence Sellers, 'The Correct Sadist'; Dr. Henry Morgentaler vs. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, 'To Be Or Not To Be?'; David Lake, 'Executive Targets: Industrial Espionage'; Robert Stewart, 'Causation Of Abstract Relations'; Judith Doyle, 'Rate Of Descent'; Roger Peyrefitte, 'Baron Wilhelm Von Gloeden'; Joel Peter Witkin, 'Penitente', 'Angel of the Carrots', 'The Sins of Juan Miró'; Lori Spring, 'Western Perspectives On Japanese Cinema'; Vincent Tangredi, 'Of The Four Considerations'; Anne Turyn, 'Lessons and Notes'; Eldon Garnet, 'Caves'; Jody Berland, 'Re/Percussions: Drumming In The Age Of Electronic Reproduction'; Jean Baudrillard, 'Nuclear Implosion'; Sylvère Lotringer Interviews Jean Baudrillard, 'Dropping Out Of History'.

Editorial:

I've stood in front of so many self-centred answers only to discover dead centres.

So many polarities.

The opportunists and the power hungry.

On one side are the opportunists who appropriate liberalism to hide their personal ambitions. On the other side are the possessors of current power who defend their rights in the name of capital.

Both have their allure but both are false.

First: the pseudo liberals, the media liberals who perform for public acclaim; these are not the daily, grassroot workers who are directly effected by the suppressive situation, who know the situation first hand. The pseudo, media liberals are those firetruckers who complain their way to a position of power by demanding esteem for themselves in the name of "socialism", "collectivism", and "Marxism", in the name of people, of the workers, of the oppressed minorities. This group attempts to exorcize their minor feeling of guilt while simultaneously promoting their individual power-seeking ambitions. The noise of their constant denial is prevalent; many uncommitted members of the same group hear their complaints and become slightly more guilty and so lend them more support, more power and ultimately aid in the suppression of who they profess they want to champion. The truth is: who they want to free is themselves, to ingest as much power as possible for their individual egos.

Their articulate denial of the established power group is initially very attractive in that their critique is directed against the "correct" groups. But this critique is nothing more then rhetoric. Once the power centre has been replaced by their power center, there is no substantial change, merely a minor transformation from one elitist group to another who nepotistically support their own constituency. These so-called liberals champion the suppressed only to attain their authority, only to suppress once again and exercise their position of power to further their own worldly ambitions.

Second: those who are presently in power, the current executives, those whose central concern is to maintain the status quo and establish profits for themselves and their organizations.

This power group is the accepted object of attack of the non-power group - the pseudo liberal can always make points by finding weaknesses in the power group's superstructure and articulating them to their followers.

This group is basically responsible for the current state of misaffairs and is intent on preserving their own position at all costs. Change except for gain is their constant enemy. They have worked hard to establish themselves in their current position and are not about to allow themselves to be easily removed. Worst of all, they passionately believe in what they have achieved.

The scenario developed here is a dead end: the false liberals confronting the entrenched established. Historically it is the sound of this conflict which is heard by the media and the populace; stances are taken in relation to the individual's interpretation of this conflict; the individual deciding because of personal necessity on which side they will stand. A dead end situation: I have no desire to side with either of these parties: neither hypocrisy nor bureaucracy interests me. What has to be found is a third state. A third group, another viable direction. What must be found is a form of liberalism which is based on genuine compassion, which is self-directed and must not unfairly co-opt the effort of others, which is not hypocritical, which is not based on old ideologies, on male/female differentiation, or old dialectics, which is not racist, not based in class priorities, or on historical analysis of examples outside our present situation. It must be based on a system of rational, humane judgement which is situationally oriented and problem solving directed; it must have a language of its own not one borrowed from another's ideological position whether that position be from the right or the left. We can only continue to search, to plot new directions based outward from the moment. When a solution has been found, beware. At best we can only hope to be frustrated investigators. Once again.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 10 Number 4, Fall 1983

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet and Carolyn White.

Associate Editors:

Judith Doyle and Gerald Owen.

Contributing Editors:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York) and Joan (Adair) Brouwer (London).

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Contributing Designer:

Ken Baird.

Production Technician:

Robert Labossiere.

Editorial Assistant and Business:

James Gronau.

Computer Keyboard Operator:

Wendy White.

Mascot:

Money (Bunny Freed).

Table of Contents:

Edward Slopek, 'TV Scanners Entraining: Going Berserk On The Crest Of The Third Wave'; Andy Payne, 'Father, Discourse and Identity: Notes Towards A Reading Of Hamlet'; Gerald Owen, 'The Neo-Conservatives'; Andrew James Paterson, 'Love Songs'; Ara Rose Parker, 'The Status Of Women'; Sylvère Lotringer Interviews Fadi Mitri, 'Framing Death'; Maurice Blanchot, 'The Right Time'; Donna Wyszomierski, 'More Time On His Hands; 'Ecological Disease'; Carolyn White, 'Targeted Training'; Hans Haacke, 'Voici Alcan'; Paul Collins, 'Implied Writing'; Brian Boigon, 'I Got The Frights'.

Editorial:

The demand for and the ability to create an improved state of physical and intellectual conditions are obstructed by the existing system in North America. The power structure conditions and enforces against change. Industrial government maintains, it does not attempt to extinguish itself in a radical transformation into the future.

The state exists in Law.

Law is clearly a necessity, yet contained in its structure are only the most conservative plans for the future. Law must focus on the present: empiricism not idealism is its guiding force.

The lack of a poetic spirit is a lack of elasticity, an absence which tightens to rigidity; to be without the sense of impossible turns as the possible turns. Thinking is a set of rearrangements without rest.

One must be a constant juggler.

The tyranny of power is in the solidification and maintenance of Law.

We in North America have always lived in Law; our only cultural revolution was to colonize and to order our natural environment. The electronic revolution could be considered our current cultural "revolution." The giants of post-war Europe are slowly reorganizing after their recent industrial deaths. Very slowly. Industry is only beginning to replace its Luddite workers with robots. There is no spirit of cooperation or understanding between labour and management, no opportunity to interact for mutual improvement. The capitalist tradition of separating worker from capital has perpetuated a condition of non-cooperation. The idea: if I'm working for someone else I am not working for myself; if I'm working for myself I am working for myself.

We did not listen when Einstein elaborated on the metaphor of the bounded infinite. We remained non-Euclidean, flat beings with one dimensional implements free to move only in our plane.

No one works alone.

Marketed computer software is idea, process for sale: labour for sale, idea.

The electron worker is changing our working world: organized white collar workers will create organized machines to build their physical world. It is this improved environment which we want to construct. With our knowledge.

The central political debate is being clouded by the noisy and bloody conflict of the two super systems. Both are calcified skeletons, frightening and destructive, clashing armies wasting away.

A cultural reorganization is needed as much as a physical retooling. The attitude of improving our physical conditions by creative planning and cooperative implementation is currently rare, but if it became commonplace in the future, replacing violent non-cooperation, we would suddenly be on a utopian course. It is far too simple and, of course, impossible. Someone firing a mortar shell in Lebanon would be justified in laughing at this naivete. But it is here in North America and in the current industrial nations of the world that the cultural revolution could take place, in the countries where the violence of war has been less local. Utopian, perhaps, but that is precisely the central point of the future. Why plan for a negative future; it is senseless to plan for failure.

The greatest power is that which is able to relinquish power.

Strength is not stubborn adherence to stability, to present power. To remain stable is only to incur deterioration either dramatically imploding or with creeping ossification and eventual crumbling.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 11 Number 1, Summer 1984

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, and Gerald Owen.

Nicaragua Issue Editor:

Judith Doyle.

Co-Editor:

Jorge Lozano.

Editorial Assistants:

Adriana Angel, Eldon Garnet, James Gronau, and Gerald Owen.

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Production Assistant:

Robert Labossiere.

Business Administration:

James Gronau.

Computer Keyboard Operator:

Wendy White.

Translation:

Judith Doyle, Augusta Dwyer, D. J. Flakoll, Fred Gaysek, Jorge Lozano, Miguel J. Rakiewicz, Rhea Tregebov, and Kathleen Weaver.

Typographic Interface:

Graphic Alliance.

Table of Contents:

Alan Bolt, 'The World, the Devil, and the Flesh'; 'Theatre of Extraordinary Reality', Judith Doyle interviews Alan Bolt; Juan Aburto, 'The Disappeared'; Octavio Robleto, 'Hidden Gold', 'Oluma Nights'; Alejandro Bravo, 'The Mambo Belongs To Everyone'; Sergio Ramirez,' excerpts From De Tropelesy Tropelias'; Lizandro Chávez Alfaro, 'Insignia'; Fernando Silva, 'Things that Happen on St. Martin's Day'; Jorge Eduardo Arellano,' Kid Tamariz'; Augusto César Sandino, 'RIN and ROFF'; 'A Theatre that Subverts', Adriana Angel and Judith Doyle Interview Omar Cabezas; Margaret Randall, 'A Conversation with Sergio Ramírez'; Julio Cortázar, 'Acceptance Speech'; Rosario Murillo, 'Culture'; Leonel Rugama, 'To Go By'; Daisy Zamora, 'Commander Two'; Rosario Murillo, 'Illumination / Untitled'; Yolanda Blanco, 'The Flowers of Horror'; Santos Cermeno, 'Maypole in Bluefields'; Marvin Rios, in Masaya; Rubén Darío 'To Roosevelt / I Seek a Form'; Adelina Díaz, '4 Months'; Ernesto Cardenal, 'Managua 6:30 P.M. / I Don't Know'.

Editorial:

"Here in Nicaragua, we speak of something we call Somocista kitsch ... what the Somocistas really wanted was to turn Nicaragua into a kind of Miami -which is not really the best cultural tradition of North America." - Sergio Ramirez, novelist, and member of the Governing Junta, Nicaragua.

This is an issue of Nicaraguan art and writing which called for or came after the July 19, 1979 victory of the revolution. At this time of expanding warfare and U.S. intervention in Central America, Nicaragua's artwork, along with developments in health, education and land reform, are eclipsed in the news here by the old bugaboos of 'totalitarianism' and 'foreign agents', trundled out to rally public opinion against the Nicaraguan revolution.

We are publishing Nicaraguan work rather than second-hand reports to give a more direct view of the new culture in Nicaragua, following the long dictatorship. Nicaraguan artists are working to build an authentic, national culture against 'Somocista kitsch'. There is no one 'correct' theory or style, and no interest in finding one. Different artists raise different ideas on the role of the artist in Nicaragua today.

The Nicaraguan government has done much to promote culture, to make the facilities and conditions for it available to far more people. It has done so in the face of a huge foreign debt following Somoza's flight in 1979 with most of the country's wealth, and deepening counter-revolutionary attacks backed by the Reagan administration.

In her paper, Rosario Murillo, Secretary-General of the Association of Sandinista Cultural Workers, outlines cultural programs as they are developing. To give two examples, a campaign in 1980 reduced illiteracy from 50% to 12%. Cultural supplements are published weekly in all three of Nicaragua's daily newspapers- the FSLN party newspaper 'Barricada', 'EI Nuevo Diario', an independent paper which supports the government, and in the opposition paper 'La Prensa'.

The Nicaraguan Council of State has passed measures affecting culture. For example, there is a law against sexual exploitation of women in advertising, and a law initiated by poet, priest, Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal against commercial exploitation of Christmas. Under the state of emergency, news for the dailies must be submitted to a censor's office, which is trying to inhibit the publication of "lies, manipulation and misinformation." - Lieutenant Nelba Blandón, Director of News Media, National Reconstruction Government. 'La Prensa' posts rejected articles outside the newspaper offices. The Sandinistas have declared that all opinions can be expressed through editorials, and the absolute freedom of artists and writers to produce and exhibit their work.

There were many works we wanted to publish in this issue, but could not because of space and time limits. We regret the absence of work from Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast, and wish we could have published more popular poetry and drawing, given their importance in Nicaragua.

We dedicate this issue to Julio Cortázar, the Argentinian novelist who died this February and was a great friend of the Nicaraguan revolution. We share the aims of Artists' Call - "a broad coalition of U.S. and Canadian artists, art publications, commercial galleries, artists' organizations and film and video screening spaces who are organizing activities in homage to the Central American people, and to protest the growing U.S. military presence in Central America."

Judith Doyle

Volume 11 Number 2, Fall 1984

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, and Gerald Owen.

Contributing Editor:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York).

Editorial Assistant and Business:

James Gronau. Advertising Issue.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White, and James Gronau.

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Computer Keyboard Operator:

Wendy White.

Mascot:

Money.

Typographic Interface:

Graphic Alliance.

Table of Contents:

David Anderson for The Funnel; George Whiteside for Arkon Electronics; Ann Peiponen for Pages + The Cameron Public House; Barbara Klunder & Patti Habib for The Bamboo Club; Jo Whale for Art Com; Gloria Berlin (G.B. Jones) for Fifth Column; Ryan Takatsu for Plug in Gallery; Geoffrey Shea & Robin Collyer for Trinity Square Video; Ida Applebroog for Ronald Feldman Fina Arts; George Whiteside & Karen Simpson for Bambini; Ellen Tofflemire for Devah; Bruno Dyan for Denis Bouchard; Humour in Advertising: The Joke's on Us by Gerry Vise; Greider for Art 15' 84; Martin Avillez & Greg Whitehead for Semiotexte; Video 84; Sydney Dinsmore for Interference; Gary Nickard for Ceppa Gallery; Mark Newgarden for Raw Magazine Reactor; Chip Lord for Ant Farm; Fastwürms for Ydessa Gallery; Mark Krawczynski for The Record Peddler; Miguel Albear for Danceteria; Michael Snow for The Music Gallery; Another Quaint Device in Their Trading by Edward Slopek; Maurizio Nannucci for Zona; Brian Boigon for Waterloo School Of Architecture; Doug Walker for Gallery 76; Anke Davids for Dufflet Pastries; Arni Runar Haraldson for Vanguard Magazine; Sherry Kerlin for Ok Harris Gallery; Ed Radford for the Isaacs Gallery; David Wilson for Phoenix; Carolyn White for Tonik; Susan Britton; W.S Brown; Vincent Tangredi; Rodney Werden; Les Levine; David Buchan; Blair Robins; Randy & Berenicci; David Hlynsky; Nancy Burson; Gordon Lebredt; Les Levine; John Bentley Mays; Eldon Garnet; Tom Sherman; Persuasive Notion of Desire by Bill Nicholas; Liz Magor; Chris Burden; General Idea; Hard Werken.

Volume 11 Number 3, 1984

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, and Gerald Owen.

Contributing Editor:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York).

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Business Manager:

James Gronau.

Special Edition Artist Monograph.

Allies:

Several Stories by Nancy Johnson.

Volume 11 Number 4, Winter 1985

Publisher:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Eldon Garnet, Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, and Gerald Owen.

Contributing Editor:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York).

Death Issue Guest Editor:

Sylvère Lotringer.

Co-Editor:

Eldon Garnet.

Associate Editors:

Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, Gerald Owen, and Andrew Payne.

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Editorial Assistants and Business:

James Gronau, and Sharon Brooks.

Advertising Representative:

Natalie Olanick.

Cover Photograph:

Bernard Faucon.

Cover Design:

Carolyn White.

Table of Contents:

Jean Baudrillard, 'The Child in the Bubble'; Pierre Guyotat, 'Coma'; Judith Doyle, 'Animal Lives, Rights, and Death'; Ken Hollings, 'Public Citizen: Private Army'; Andrew James Paterson, 'Necrophilia: Beyond Persuasion'; Sylvère Lotringer interviews James Van Der Zee; Alain Jaubert, 'The City Below'; Paul Virilio, 'The Spirit Of Defence'; Kathy Acker, 'Scenes in World War III'; Eldon Garnet, 'I Shot Mussolini'; Brian Well, 'Miami Police Force'; John Brown, 'Land: Sleep'; Louise Noguchi, 'The Catch'; Sharon Cook, 'How to Draw a Vulture'; Gordon Lebredt, 'Death Throe'.

Editorial:

We don't kill people any more. We put them to sleep. Like dogs.

We used to carry our death inside like a growth. Now we carry life in our organs. But to deliver we have to die.

Spare parts: Technological psychosis.

Noncoital collaborative reproduction. We removed sex from procreation. Now we have procreation without sex.

A teenager in chemotherapy asks his father to freeze some of his sperm for his future wife. Technological incest. Frozen sperm can keep for dozens of years: a great-grandfather will be able to fertilize his own offspring across the generations. Genealogy and filiations are about to collapse, but Oedipus still reigns supreme. And the Name of the Father. We are now losing the Law, the Name . . and The Thing (Das Ding).

A California real estate developer and his wife crash in a light plane. Their two offspring are waiting in Melbourne, Australia to receive a share of the millionaire's estate. Frozen in suspended animation. I bet they're dying to be born.

A woman was kept clinically alive for six days at Buffalo's Children's Hospital in 1981 until her baby could be born with a better chance of survival. The woman had suffered brain death, but the fetus showed movement and a good heartbeat. "The bottom line was that she could care for the baby better than we could," Dr. Dillon said. Who was she?

"Where's the patient? Where's the patient?" cries Arthur Knobloch, an ambulance driver for the Hasbrouck Heights Volunteer Fire Department. "We heard it's a cardiac case."

"It's not a patient:' the assistant explains. "It's a heart"

Baboon transplants. We should get their brains, too. It would make us more human.

Antonin Artaud talked about a "body without organs." Now we have organs without bodies. Soon the body will go, too.

The advent of cyclosporine, a new drug that persuades the immune system to tolerate grafts, has made the transplant of all kinds of organs increasingly feasible. Enthusiasts assert that by the end of the decade no one need die of organ failure.

Barry Jakobs, a defrocked doctor from Reston, Virginia, plans to start brokering human kidneys. He hopes $10,000 will persuade a donor to part with one. The second kidney must be more expensive.

The artificial heart was still beating when Dr. Clark died.

Decline in autopsies raises concern. Biopsy techniques are now so precise that they provide a mini-autopsy while the patient is still alive. No rush for dying any more. It can be done live, Dr Lundberg argues, though, that the time has come for doctors to "stop burying their mistakes" With death's disappearance, that's apparently all he could find to bury.

Frozen death is our round-about way of re-creating traditional attitudes towards death, where the dead always keep for eternity.

We always think post-mortem. Theory is our death-work.

When something becomes visible, it's already moribund. When Freud put his nose on hysteria, it was already on its way out. Where is hysteria now? Everywhere. In women and men alike. Small hysteria. No more orgasmic performances. Signs were getting out of the body. Out of hand. Freud put them back into the body. For that he had to invent a new body of science. He wanted signs to be rooted deeply somewhere. He called that somewhere the UNCONSCIOUS. It's a deadly place.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross patterned the four stages of death and dying after Freud's theories of child sexuality. Now at least death can be polymorphous perverse.

Instead of being ostracised, terminal cancer patients are now encouraged to share their experience with trained personnel. Terminal therapy: let them talk themselves to death. Death is the ultimate outrage. Don't try to make it respectable.

Dignity in death: "Gratifying for the visitor." (Kubler Ross).

"How do you deal with rage and anger?" Dr. Kubler-Ross was asked. "You try to tell him that you can appreciate his anger and his envy and that if you were in his position you would be angry, too:" she answered. "in other words, you try to put fuel in the fire and let him ventilate his anguish ..."

A few extra minutes spent with these extra-difficult patients can work wonders. They will call for the nurses less often, the family is more content, and the patients are more comfortable. God forbid anyone should look back in anger. It would make everybody uncomfortable.

Death with dignity. Two-way exit. Patients' legitimate right of autonomy dangerously coincides with "deregulation" policies. As Richard D. Lamm, the Governor of Colorado, put it bluntly, "we've got a duty to die, to get out of the way with our machines and our artificial hearts." Missiles don't have hearts, but they too, are "extraordinarily expensive" machines, and they kill without dignity.

The technology of death is way ahead of us. We're lagging behind, still trying to pump some humanity into it. Brain transplant. Who's who.

Dialogue on death and technology:

Sylvère: When someone is strapped to a machine, individual and society are one and the same thing. Society is in him with all these tubes. Money also flows through them.

Eldon: It's not an individual death any more. It's a societal death, the kind that's not supposed to exist any more.

Sylvère: But it's through the machine that we regain society. A very unhuman society.

Eldon: Unhuman? Machines are the most human aspect of our culture. They are our creations, or extensions. They are human machines, obviously, we built them.

Sylvère: They can replace us. They are operational. But they don't have a life.

Eldon: We are also operational.

Sylvère: That's what I was saying. It's the disappearance of death.

Over the last two years both prisons and hospitals have started hiring "resident" philosophers. "We hope he will ask the big questions we often don't have time to ask ourselves," said Connecticut's Commissioner of Correction. This prison philosopher program is the first in the nation. Several teaching hospitals in New York City have hired philosophers to help their doctors grapple with the ethical aspects of medical decisions such as whether to allow a terminally ill patient to die or to use sophisticated life-support systems.

When institutions start asking big questions, they really are at their wit's ends.

Death by injection. The condemned is injected with a needle connected to a tube that runs through the wall into the next room. There, two medical technicians force liquids into the tube. Without knowing which is which, one will inject harmless salt water. The other will inject three kinds of deadly chemicals.

Death cell: it has to be "comfortable enough to guarantee a good night's sleep but not so comfortable that you want to stay".

A wall for a tube. Social thought crystallized in a ton of bricks, Ridicule also can kill. Prisoners on death row volunteered for the artificial heart experiment. They were rejected, said Dr. De Vries, "because the benefits would not have outweighed the risks". The prisoners didn't stand to lose much, so where was the risk? That people might discover that prisoners too have hearts? Or that lawabiding citizens can manage with a pump?

Why don't we freeze criminals instead of strapping them to the electric chair? We may spare ourselves some guilt and a few criminal errors. Death by lethal injection: execution by "safe and effective" medication.

We should call death row 'intensive care'.

"I do have to tell society I am very disgusted with them, Tim Baldwin, 46, the "ex-altar boy," said before his body shot bolt upright and smoke started puffing from under the electrodes. "But really, I'm not afraid because I've got a curious nature to begin with. I'm curious about what happens after death." To kill him once wasn't enough.

Autoerotic deaths are causing widening concern. Parents should be "alert to such signs in their sons as frequently bloodshot eyes; marks on the neck; foggy or disoriented behavior, especially after having gone off alone for a while; and possession of or fascination with ropes, chains or other forms of inducing partial asphyxiation such as plastic bags, gags or gas inhalation devices."

Every culture provides tools to deal with death. Ours doesn't. We pay for everything. Death always happens at the end of the line. It makes up a narrative. I want death at the beginning. To be born dead is to be born alive.

Death is always buried in narratives. Break up the story and death lives. There are diseases that we inoculate in small doses in order to develop the immunity of the organism. Stories are death's vaccine.

Philosophy doesn't prepare us for death, Death prepares us for philosophy.

In America the main function of language isn't to communicate, but to maintain contact. Hence the fascination repulsion towards the "loner" who comes back gun in hand because he's taken it upon himself not to communicate anymore - or to communicate only through death. We don't communicate with the dead any more, so to be unable to communicate has become synonymous with death.

People who are afraid of death live their lives as a living death. I want my death dead to live my life alive.

You never know where anguish comes from, or where it goes. It floats around aimlessly, always ready for a call, or for a cause. There are always enough causes lying around, looking for an effect.

Fear gives anguish a point. Anguish gives fear a push.

A little anguish is always useful. It keeps on line. Anguish has no face, no identity. It is ready for anything.

Anguish makes us want security in life. Death is our only protection:

Sylvère: Anguish is at the root of the individual.

Eldon: So what's the way out?

Sylvère: Technologization of death, technologization of life.

Eldon: Do you suppose science and technology are an answer to anguish?

Sylvère: It's not the answer. It's the disappearance of the question.

Death has no meaning in our culture. So even to be fascinated by that faceless face is the mystic phase of meaninglessness.

Death is becoming visible again, not because we have acquired a greater cultural maturity or that conditions which had initially permitted its disappearance have been remedied: Death is reappearing because technology's higher bid is pushing death (and life) to a crisis.

The ancient configuration which relegated death to the margins of consciousness no longer holds. Death is spreading everywhere but in a diluted, therapeutic form. Between technology and therapy, death is slowly disappearing as a major cultural force.

Sylvère Lotringer

Volume 12 Number 1, Summer 1985

Publisher / Executive Editor:

Eldon Garnet.

Editors:

Carolyn White, Judith Doyle, and James Gronau.

Contributing Editor:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York).

Associate Editors:

Gerald Owen, and Andrew Payne.

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Editorial Assistant and Business:

Sharon Brooks.

Advertising Representative:

Natalie Olanick.

Cover Photo and Design:

Carolyn White.

Table of Contents:

Dot Tuer, 'The Site of an Imaginary History'; James Wines, 'On the Subject of World Expositions'; Impulse Interviews James Wines and Richard Blagborne; Alexander Wilson, 'The Managed Landscape'; David Burgess, 'The Orillia Opera'; Will Straw, 'Heavy Metal'; Tim Jocelyn, 'Artists Furniture and Functional Art in New York'; Claudio A. Santon, 'The Mystery of Leonardo's Bicycle'; Miguel Rakiewicz interviews Nestor Almendros; Mike Glier, 'Men At Home'; Susan Speigel, 'Theatre of Architecture'; Silvia Kolbowski, "December 1984"; Midi Onodera, 'Ten Cents A Dance (Parallax)'.

Editorial:

Is it out of fear or out of strength. I told him, I think it is out of fear. She said, the equation, suppressing in the name of freedom, is impossible to resolve. What difference does it make to us that they call it defence as our bodies fall.

History is always expecting.

"Our people in South Africa knew that they hate apartheid. They are fighting against it. But after apartheid -what then? That is the question we are trying to answer here." Principal of the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, Mazimbu.

The institutions of freedom in our culture have become institutions of control. The legal system describes the moral order under which we are being asked to live. Freedom is a set of legal restrictions. The struggle with freedom has become a struggle with the law, with the existing institutions.

"We are entering a period in which our legal culture and constitutional law may be transformed, with even more power accruing to judges than is currently the case." Appeals Court judge appointed by Ronald Reagan.

As the institutions become more entrenched, the question of moral harm of community or Institutional control versus the privatization of morality becomes central.

"These institutions are designed to achieve compromise, to slow change, to dilute absolutism."

Historically the liberal position has been to argue for individual rights. This position is consistent with freedom of speech. But what occurs when a man makes a career out of publishing racial lies, do we still respect individuals and their right to free speech, or do we respect the truth of history, the right of the victim? The right of the community versus the right of the individual, but to the detriment of the community. Should a censor board have the power to protect individuals against their own will, to self-righteously and forcefully impose an unwanted morality, to police and regulate the community to ensure that it does not experience questionably harmful material (and harmful to whom, the community or the individual viewer)? Or should individuals have the right of choice, to decide for themselves whether to see a particular movie, or read a particular book or magazine. And should the President of the United States ignore the vote of the House of Representatives and the Congress not to visit the cementary at Bitburg, following the imperative of his own will? Should the ruler of a country surpress the sexual activity of one group in the name of a nation's morality? Should sex between consenting adults in the privacy of their own bedroom, or the viewing of video tapes in the privacy of one's home be the topic of government regulation? Should the president of a democratic country continue his attempt to give financial and moral support to the previous supporters of a dicatorship against an elected popular government? Is this what the Third World countries have to look forward to after completing their initial liberation?

Only the name and excuses differ.

."But," he said, "I remember Chomsky describing in detail the consequences of changing even a small part of the system, implying in his extensive extrapolation the impossibility to commit even the simplest change."

"Is that a defence or a weapon?" she asked.

Eldon Garnet

Volume 12 Number 2, Fall 1985

Publisher / Executive Editor:

Eldon Garnet.

Managing Editor:

Judith Doyle.

Editors:

Carolyn White, Gerald Owen, and Brian Boigon.

Contributing Editors:

Sylvère Lotringer (New York), and Andy Payne.

Art Direction:

Carolyn White.

Assembly Assistant:

Werner Arnold.

Business Manager:

Sharon Brooks.

Advertising Representative:

Cliff Dempster.

Cover Image:

Eldon Garnet.

Cover Design:

Carolyn White.

Table of Contents:

Elena Garro, 'It's the Fault of the Tlaxcaltecas'; Pier Luigi Tazzi, 'A Whole Story'; Brian Boigon, 'The Fish Spy'; Liliana Heker, 'Jocasta'; Astrid Klein, 'Photoworks'; Jenny Holzer, 'The Survival Series'; S. Kerlin, 'New Worries for the Future Worlds'; Komar-Melamid, 'Thank You Comrade Stalin'; Larry Richards, 'Meeting Jimmy 30 Years Later'; Hans Haacke, 'Metromobiltan'; Virgina Wright, 'Modern Furniture Designers in Canada'; 'Abortion Rights: A Chronology', assembled by Judith Doyle; Jeanne Randolph, 'Small Diary Of Suppression'; China: Architecture, Wen Xiu interviewed by Brian Boigon; The Official Story, Luis Puenzo interviewed by Miguel Rakiewicz; Electronic Persuasion, Tony Schwartz interviewed by Impulse.