Pictures of the moon, the ultimate topos in photography, have been given a new twist in Erik
In March 2022, here at Monday Press, we began receiving long emails from an anonymous account belonging to someone we barely knew. These letters were sent from deep underground—so deep that we weren’t even sure if it was safe to reply. They told an insider’s story of a world in the process of being erased: the anxiety, the fear, and the longing for something that was vanishing right before the author’s eyes. Over the course of a year, we received four letters and a series of photographs (taken by someone else). The author of the letters is now in a safe place but prefers to remain anonymous.
The book describes the Russian noise underground in the first year of the war. It’s a devastating read, raw, excessive, hyper-existential, intimate, edge of the world, anti-war, written from the inside.
with photographs by Wassily Bosch Published in 2025
Pictures of the moon, the ultimate topos in photography, have been given a new twist in Erik Steinbrecher’s MONDFOTOGRAFIE. The Swiss artist collects pictures of the moon and rephotographs
The project THE SOUND OF NORMALISATION is a collection of audio recordings that documents the sound culture of the Ultras group BRESCIA 1911 in relation to modern football and the wave of repressive measures targeted at organized supporters groups. The recordings were taken over a period of 15 years and cover: 1) creation, uses and meanings of the chants 2) group principles and collective identity 3) audience participation and the process of social exclusion from the stadium 4) police repression and the political implications of the chants 5) the evolution of the drumming in relation to the drums ban-order of 2007. Each recording comes with a short introductory text and is presented as a video with subtitles. The work has been published in 2018 by SARU, Oxford Brookes University.
Since early 2000 Tidoni has been researching football supporter subculture, audience participation and crowd regulation. The overall research concerns the nexus of public space, social performance and surveillance in contemporary Italian football.
The aim of the research is to trace mechanisms of social interaction and aesthetic creation in football supporters’ subculture via an examination of the sound practices shared by the group Brescia 1911. Relations between sound production and space construction are investigated especially in the light of dynamics of social control adopted in football grounds in the last years.
The research contributes to a better understanding of sound’s function in group formation and collective identity as well as how sound performance and social repertoire evolve in relation to public security measures and space control.
In 2015, a first concrete materialization of the project has been exhibited at ARGOS, centre for art and media, Brussels. In 2018, the final version of the project has been presented at GET SOME CHALK ON YOUR BOOTS! an exhibition and conference organized by SARU at Oxford Brookes University.
ED4M Zine presentation and Screening ‘Making of ED4M’
November 8th, 2024 Screening starts 7 pm
+conversation with the artist with K1NO1 ____________________________________________
Motto – 38 rue du Vertbois – 75003 Paris ____________________________________________
The main character is the electric train type ED4M, one of the most common in Russia since the mid-90s. This small detective story unfolds on newsprint, featuring carriage vestibules, doors, handles, and wanted persons. It immerses the audience in the realm between the living and the dead, accompanied by the sound of wheels clattering, exploring space, ritual, collective recognition, and personal experience. The Tbilisi weekly sports newspaper served as the prototype for this book.
ED4M (Electric train Demikhovsky, type 4) is a series of Russian DC electric trains produced from 1996 to 2016 at the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant. The first batch with increased comfort was manufactured for the Moscow Railway between 1999 and 2000. During this period, ED4 and ED4M models became the most significant electric trains for local purposes.
Zine features photographs by Ivan Anisimov taken between 2019 and 2022 before he left Russia. Further shooting was continued by his son Danila, who took four rolls of 35mm film in winter 2023. Zine design by Aeona Melnikova.
Screening is a documentation of the printing process of a zine in a print facility, Tbilisi.
Ivan Anisimov was born in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Russia, in 1988. For more than 10 years, he has been engaged in documentary film and photography, collecting archives from lost photographs and videos. He has carried out several photographic projects and is now based in Paris, France.
The event is organized within the framework of the cinema club and Film Association K1NO1 Paris.
ED4 (Electric train Demikhovsky, type 4) is a series of Russian DC electric trains produced from 1996 to 2016 at the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant for the railways of Russia and the states of the republics of the former USSR. In the period from 1999 to 2000, the first batch of electric trains with an increased level of comfort were manufactured. This batch was by order of the Moscow Railway, and was necessary for the implementation of local flights. In 2000, the first set of AC electrical equipment for ED9M electric trains was supplied by Electrosila OJSC. It was from these deliveries that the active introduction of the equipment of this company into production began. During this period, trains of the ED4 and ED4M models were the most significant and widespread electric trains used for local purposes.
The book features photographs by Ivan Anisimov taken between 2019 and 2022 before he left Russia. Further shooting was continued by his son Danila in accordance with the list provided by his father. In total Danila took four rolls of 35mm film in winter 2023.
An’archives are pleased to announce the release of a self-titled album by Tori Kudo & 3C123. A reissue of a cassette that was originally released on Uramado in 2020, this is the first time this live session has appeared on vinyl. The performance, featuring Kudo on piano and 3C123 on clarinet, was recorded on October 18, 2009, at the Uramado venue in Shinjuku. A beautiful and quixotic forty-minute set, it reconnects both Kudo and 3C123 with various musical histories, including those of classical composition and free improvisation.
The performance documented on Tori Kudo & 3C123 is a curious one. While they both appear to slip into improvised ruminations at times, for the most part, Kudo performs pieces by Erik Satie on the piano, over which 3C123 teases an excoriating stream of improvisation from the clarinet. His playing here is wild in its poetry: sometimes lushly nestling alongside Satie’s melodies, elsewhere loosing Ayler-esque squalls from the instrument, it’s a bravura performance that is matched, in an indirect manner, by the poise and pacing of Kudo’s generous, fluent recital.
When asked about the thinking behind the performance documented here, Kudo explains by describing the historical juxtaposition of Satie with Takehisa Kosugi’s improvised violin as “an essence of the Japanese art of collective improvisation.” The playing here, as within Japanese collective improvisation, is about sitting ‘alongside’ each other, not necessarily in direct (or even indirect) reference, but rather sharing the space; “just being there together,” Kudo says, and letting go of the need for performers to engage in interplay.
Tori Kudo & 3C123 is certainly part of that tradition, and this is where its curious poetry resides; in that ‘third space’ that sits in between, but not directly connecting, the two performers. Kudo makes an analogy with Fluxus, which is appropriate. But you can also hear their shared history here, somehow, as Kudo and 3C123 have known each other since the eighties, when they shared a house in Kunitachi City, Tokyo. Their musical paths have been multiple – Kudo, of course, best known perhaps for his Maher Shalal Hash Baz ensemble; 3C123 as a member of Vedda Music Workshop, and with other Japanese musicians like Koichiro Watanabe.
It’s a lovely album that’s as mystifying as it is direct and beautiful.
The latest volume of writing by influential New York–based critic and curator Bob Nickas collects his 2012–14 column for Vice magazine’s Komp-laint Dept. This column unleashed the full omnivorous range of the author’s interests. There are essays on musicians such as Neil Young, Sun Ra, Royal Trux and Lydia Lunch, which look at their biographies and the history of Nickas’ personal relationship with their music; there are lengthy and often very funny “complaints” about, among other things, two different presidents, Jeff Koons, New York architecture, the meeting of fashion and punk, religion in general, nostalgia and the problem with contemporary graffiti. Additionally, there are meditations on filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and Nicolas Refin. The book is rounded out by perhaps the definitive (two-part) examination of how and why Richard Prince uses appropriation.
In 2004, 2/5BZ’s second vinyl EP which featured 3 tracks from his second appearance at Peel Session in 2004 (proposed early 2004, broadcasted in late 2004) together with 3 unreleased tracks has been released under his own label Gözel Records in 2006 and has beed re-pressed many times . 2/5BZ, aka Serhat Köksal, has worked as a multimedia artist with various releases in video, music, and literary formats since 1991 in Istanbul and performed live audiovisual performances under motto “NO Touristik NO Exotik” in 20 countries and 96 cities in clubs, festivals, squats, exhibitions and multimedia perforformances at well-known festivals such as Club Transmediale in Berlin, Sonic Acts in Amsterdam, Donau Festival . 2/5BZ had an interview with John Peel in 1994 for BBC world Service . ” Of all the music I heard in Turkey, I liked 2/5BZ best “, commented John Peel and aired his works two times at Peel Session in BBC Radio 1 with following announcement “ that track is from one of my favourites sessions of the recent past from 2/5BZ from Istanbul.No Touristik No Exotic it is called..” John Peel (2004)
The sound of each individual’s voice is thought to be entirely unique. Like a fingerprint, its composition is distinct, nuanced, and one-of-a-kind. While all this is true, it’s a concept that has been challenged in recent times by the refinement of AI-powered systems which are able to emulate voices to a tee. And not only voices, for that matter, but whole styles and aesthetics: an AI-generated facsimile of Drake and The Weeknd’s voices titled “Heart on My Sleeve” made the rounds this year and was even submitted for Grammy consideration. It’s a legitimate song, and a proposal that does not only keep legal departments busy, but also allows for myriad reflections on originality and, bluntly, the future of music. But as the future of music is a broad and daunting topic to speculate on, we want to hone in on what’s been prefaced above: issue #28 of zweikommasieben centers the voice as means of expression, and wants to expand on what is meant by that: it’s not only what is heard, but also why a voice is used and by whom. This latest edition considers what it means to voice, and its physical, societal and political dimensions.
Truthfully, voices as a topic might be even more daunting to tackle. Its political implications are manifold and have to be considered in seriousness. Voice can’t be separated from reflections on the ingrained power of attitudes, beliefs, and norms that dominate. Exhibit A for these complex entanglements is a conversation Dounia Biedermann had with South Korean artist bela. The musician explains how they use all kinds of different voices other than their recognizable speaking voice to articulate and access deeply felt emotions towards their home country and identity. “Whispering, growling, screeching, and inhaling” help them in disrupting cultural boundaries of power that historically constrain and silence marginalized identities. With this approach, bela finds an ally in Krista Papista: in conversation with Jazmina Figueroa she informs that her latest album was an explicit tribute to the lives of victims of femicide in Cyprus, and the marginalized voices that are not heard within the Cypriot national ideology. By subverting traditional music genres and poetics, both Krista Papista and bela push forward the need to queer history and to reveal longstanding, harmful, national myths.
In a queer history, we are no longer pointed towards dominant and singular voices, but instead expand to a context that is polyvocal—a term we encounter in artist Claudia Pagès’ contribution to this issue: through the tools of light, drums, and text, a different temporality and reading of history is proposed. Tuning out of the prevailing source of authoritarian speech, and tuning in to the voices of many, also leads us to consider the articulation of the collective. In his interview with Helena Julian, artist Tianzhuo Chen points to the shared voice of humankind as a whole, and its yearning for a state of flow and togetherness.
For the latest iteration of the visual column “Formations”, Imane Djamil provides a portfolio of photographs taken in the Moroccan seaside town Tarfaya. In the series, we are confronted with the boundaries that can be imposed on one’s legitimacy to express. We witness glimpses of everyday life, in close proximity to the severely precarious migratory sea passage towards Europe. Hearing the voice of the local community, we equally become aware of whose voice is missing.
Naturally, the voice is also an instrument that is shaped by its limitations. Although, still today, it seems to have preeminence above all other forms of human expression. The full width of the use of voice and sounds produced by individuals is further explored in an essay by Dagmar Bosma. The artist and writer muses on the act and appearances of different forms of stimming, which is a verb that originates from the neurodivergent community. Bosma highlights the sonic dimension of stimming with its vocalizations and repetitions of sounds and rhythms, as a way to equally express and soothe.
A recurring interest of zweikommasieben is, to speak with Claudia Pagès, to be polyvocal. Previous issues tried to achieve this by highlighting all the different people involved in bringing a magazine to life (in issue #22) or allowing authors, translators, photographers, and designers to make additional editorial notes (in issue #23). This time around, the graphic designers Kaj Lehmann and Raphael Schoen are using typographic matter to create a similar effect: different cuts of the same font (which was designed by Lehmann and previously used in issue #17) are applied to choral effect.
One could argue that for a voice to exist, it needs to be heard. In this 28th edition, we wish to offer exactly that. In the next pages, you will perceive a multitude of voices—from roars to whispers—, sometimes out of tune or out of time, with the intention to be recognised by those who dare to listen.
‘Une idée du temps’ rend hommage à Éliane Radigue, pionnière de la musique électronique à 92 ans. Avec son ARP 2500, elle a créé un son distinctif basé sur sa vision audacieuse et son sens unique de l’acoustique, du temps et de la durée. Le livre présente des portraits et des photos de son ARP 2500 prises entre 1955 et 1972, avec une introduction de Joseph Ghosn en anglais et français. Premier tirage limité à 300 exemplaires.
