Join us at The Poetic Research Bureau to celebrate the release of Miljohn Ruperto’s An Operational Account of Western Spatio-Temporality, our latest X Projects edition. Miljohn Ruperto will be in conversation with XAB author Mashinka Firunts Hakopian.

An Operational Account of Western Spatio-Temporality, an edition by Miljohn Ruperto, comprises three flipbooks and an accordion-fold booklet. The booklet presents an essay that examines three forms of time as philosophized by the Ancient Greeks—aion, chronos, and kairos—to map the boundaries of, and discern the influences of, Western spatio-temporality. The essay serves as a guiding narrative to help readers identify the source or the essence of Western subjectivity.

Each of Ruperto’s flipbooks depict a disembodied head in movement. “The Baroque Is a Geometric Imposition Upon Wild Nature” features the head of Medusa; “History Awaits Immanence,” the head of John the Baptist; and “Western Temporalities Incline Towards a Tripartite Structure,” a triface image of Christ. Each of these figures is drawn from classical art historical references.

Miljohn Ruperto (b.1971 Manila, Philippines) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Ruperto is interested in developing approaches to interrogating and expanding our conception of nature and history: e.g. historiography, the history of nature, and the nature of nature.

Artist, designer, and independent curator Margaret Tedesco has collaborated with artists, writers, choreographers, and filmmakers for over three decades. In 2007, she established 2nd Floor Projects, an artist-run exhibition and publishing imprint, and received the Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Award.

Mashinka Firunts Hakopian is an Armenian writer, artist, and researcher born in Yerevan and residing in Glendale, CA. She is an Associate Professor in Technology and Social Justice at ArtCenter College of Design, and holds a PhD in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania. With Avi Alpert and Danny Snelson, she makes up one-third of the collective, Research Service. Her writing and commentary appear in Performance Research Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, Meghan Markle’s Archetypes, and elsewhere. Her research focuses on practices that generate alternative imaginaries of the future.

X Projects, established in 2021, explores the creation of artworks, editions, and ideas outside the confines of traditional book publishing.

On Valentine's Day, please join us the Institute for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, for an Art Talk with Patty Chang, Vishal Jugdeo, and XAB artist Miljohn Ruperto moderated by XAB author and X Topics editor Anuradha Vikram about the exhibition Scratching at the Moon.

Miljohn Ruperto's An Operational Account of Western Spatio-Temporality is our second X Project!

And Anuradha Vikram's Use Me at Your Own Risk was the first novel we published at XAB.

Via ICALA's website: "Engage in a moderated discussion around the themes of Scratching at the Moon and the interrelations found in the work of exhibition artists Patty Chang, Vishal Jugdeo, Miljohn Ruperto with moderator Anuradha Vikram."

For more information and to RSVP, please visit: https://www.theicala.org/en/events/547-art-talk-with-patty-chang-vishal-jugdeo-miljohn-ruperto-br-moderated-by-anuradha-vikram

A reading of Use Me at Your Own Risk: Visions from the Darkest Timeline
followed by a conversation about the book as it relates to queer literature and history, and a live DJ set. 

Human Resources

410 Cottage Home St
LA CA 90012

https://www.h-r.la/event/use-me-at-your-own-risk-visions-from-the-darkest-timeline/

About the book:

Use Me at Your Own Risk: Visions from the Darkest Timeline by Anuradha Vikram takes place in 2046, a near future where both automation and climate collapse are more advanced. In five provocative sections, Use Me at Your Own Risk confronts the ethical challenges inherent in our unprecedented shift to automation. Vikram sets the stage for these imagined futures in vivid detail, describing environments, complex characters, and events in disparate locations from New Delhi to Los Angeles. Described by Vikram as an activist art project, this speculative novel asks us to question our role in the destruction of our environment, the impact of automation on society, and heightened inequity across class, race, and gender.

Use Me at Your Own Risk: Visions from the Darkest Timeline
Author: Anuradha Vikram
Foreword: Alexandra Grant & Addy Rabinovitch
Design: Margaret Tedesco
Cover Art: Isip Xin

Grand Central Art Center and X Artists’ Book, in association with Sargent’s Daughters invite you to join us in celebration of the release of Yaron Michael Hakim: Psittaciformes.

Yaron Michael Hakim: Psittaciformes is a 104-page publication published in conjunction with an exhibition curated by John D. Spiak at Grand Central Art Center (GCAC), California State University, Fullerton, Santa Ana, California (September 4, 2021–January 9, 2022) and a companion project by the artist presented with artist Elliott Hundley in his Los Angeles-based studio (October 30, 2021–January 14, 2022).

The publication includes a foreword by John D. Spiak, GCAC Director/Chief Curator, text by poet Amy Gerstler, and a conversation between artist Yaron Michael Hakim and former LACMA Curator and current MoCA Senior Curator José Luis Blondet.

This publication was designed by Stephen Serrato for ELLA with assistance from Gabrielle Pulgar, edited by John D. Spiak, text edited by John Farmer, photographed by Ruben Diaz, color corrected by Tony Manzella and his team at Echelon, and printed in by Stanley So and his team at Permanent Printing LTD.

Use Me At Your Own Risk: Reading

Et al. books, 2831 Mission Street, SF, CA
Author Anuradha Vikram in conversation with Dorothy Santos

https://etaletc.com/events

Join us at LAABF in the Classroom for an event with XAB authors Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Anuradha Vikram!

https://laabf2023.printedmatterartbookfairs.org/sunday

The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
152 N Central Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90012

This program centers a reading and discussion between X Artists’ Books speculative fiction authors Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Anuradha Vikram. Hakopian will read their publication The Institute for Other Intelligences (2022), which presents a transcript from a future convention for machine intelligences to discuss the human biases and omissions encoded in their training data. Vikram will read from Use Me at Your Own Risk (2023), a novel comprising five intricate narratives that take place in 2046, a near-future where both automation and climate collapse are more advanced. A conversation between the authors will follow. Presented by X Artists’ Books.

Free and open to the public!

The Queer Book Bazaar is a market and exhibition of local book dealers, independent publishers, and literary vendors. Live performances by queer musicians, dancers, and performance artists will be scheduled throughout the day on the Fiesta Hall stage.

Speakers and Performances

Boris Dralyuk: 11:00am-12:00pm

Rasheed Newson: 12:30pm-1:15pm

Rick Castro and Sam Sweet: 2:00pm-2:45pm

Fainting Party / La Femme Pendu: 3:00pm-4:00pm

K Bradford Performance: 4:00pm-5:00pm

Join X Artists’ Books at Acid-Free Book Market at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, on Sunday, June 18 at 2:30 pm for a reading and discussion around Use Me at Your Own Risk, a new novel by Anuradha Vikram, between the author and Nora Khan. Use Me at Your Own Risk takes place in 2046, a near-future where both automation and climate collapse are more advanced. In five provocative sections, Use Me at Your Own Risk confronts the ethical challenges inherent in our unprecedented shift to automation. Vikram sets the stage for these imagined futures in vivid detail, describing environments, complex characters, and events in disparate locations from New Delhi to Los Angeles. Described by Vikram as an activist art project, this speculative novel asks us to question our role in the destruction of our environment, the impact of automation on society, and impending heightened inequity across class, race, and gender.

The author and Nora Khan will discuss the themes presented in the book and the impetus for writing this first novel. Concerns represented in the book include climate change, queer sexuality, media saturation, intergenerational conflict, and financialization. 

Thursday, March 30, 6:30 – 8:30 pm Eastern Time

On March 30, 6:30pm in the New Museum Theater, Rhizome will host the book launch for two new books, The Institute for Other Intelligences by Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, and Air Age Blueprint by K Allado-McDowell, moderated by Elvia Wilke. The event will feature performative readings followed by a moderated talk and Q&A with the authors. Get your tickets here.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), consciousness, and human subjectivity will be explored in two new books launching at an event hosted by the Museum’s digital art affiliate Rhizome, featuring performative readings and a panel discussion moderated by writer Elvia Wilk.

In The Institute for Other Intelligences (X Artists’ Books, 2022, eds. Ana Iwataki and Anuradha Vikram, design by Becca Lofchie, illustrations by Fernando Diaz), author Mashinka Firunts Hakopian fuses speculative fiction and media studies into an imagined future where machine intelligences gather annually, to discuss the inherent vices of their human-made code. Hakopian presents a series of speculative exchanges and documents from these imagined meetings to critically consider current approaches to nonhuman intelligence.

Weaving together fiction, memoir, theory, and travelogue, K Allado-McDowell’s Air Age Blueprint (Ignota Press, 2023, cover art by Somnath Bhatt), was written with an AI writing partner, GPT-3, and human editorial input. A young filmmaker’s life is disrupted by a fated encounter with a Peruvian healer. Their travels lead them to meet K—a double agent working between art and technology—who invites them to test a secret program called Shaman.AI. Their human-machine experiment, rooted in magic, produces a key to rewriting reality—one in which entangled human and nonhuman intelligence will remake our technologies, identities, and deepest beliefs.

Books will be available for purchase at the event. The Institute for Other Intelligences is also available for order through xartistsbooks.com here.

Join X Artists’ Books, Poetic Research Bureau, and 2220 Arts + Archives for a launch of The Institute for Other Intelligences by Mashinka Firunts Hakopian (XAB, 2022). The event will feature readings by the author, K. Allado-McDowell, Emily Martinez, and Lauren Lee McCarthy. Please RSVP.

About The Institute for Other Intelligences:

The Institute for Other Intelligences (X Artists’ Books, 2022) brings speculative fiction and media studies to bear on an imagined future where machine intelligences convene annually for curriculum on algorithmic equity. The book presents a transcript from one of these conferences, in which a community of “AI agents” gather at a school for oppositional automata to deliver lectures on the human biases and omissions encoded in their training data. The resulting manuscript, published on the occasion of the Institute’s millennial anniversary, revisits sociotechnical systems from its founding in the 21st century. Drawing on feminist, queer, and critical media scholarship, the trainings collected in the book aim to optimize the operations of future generations of intelligent machines toward just outcomes. Hakopian uses these speculative exchanges to invite the reader to consider how critical approaches to nonhuman intelligence might reroute our current path toward destructive technofutures and allow us to conceive of another way forward. 

Edited by Ana Iwataki and Anuradha Vikram for X Topics, The Institute for Other Intelligences includes an introduction by Vikram, design by Becca Lofchie, and diagrammatic illustrations by Fernando Diaz, a scientist whose work focuses on the quantitative evaluation and algorithmic design of information access systems.

About the Author:

Mashinka Firunts Hakopian is an Armenian writer, artist, and researcher born in Yerevan and residing in Glendale, CA. She is an Associate Professor in Technology and Social Justice at ArtCenter College of Design. In 2021, she was a visiting Mellon Professor of the Practice at Occidental College, where she co-curated the exhibition “Encoding Futures: Critical Imaginaries of AI” with Meldia Yesayan at Oxy Arts. With Avi Alpert and Danny Snelson, she makes up one-third of the collective, Research Service. She is a Contributing Editor for Art Papers, and her writing and commentary have appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Performance Research Journal, Art in America, Hyperallergic, and Meghan Markle's Archetypes. She is the author of The Institute for Other Intelligences (X Artists’ Books, 2022).

About the Readers:

K Allado-McDowell is a writer, speaker, and musician. They are the author, with GPT-3, of the books Pharmako-AI, Amor Cringe, and Air Age Blueprint, and are co-editor of The Atlas of Anomalous AI. They created the neuro-opera Song of the Ambassadors, and record and release music under the name Qenric. K established the Artists + Machine Intelligence program at Google AI. They are a conference speaker, educator and consultant to think-tanks and institutions seeking to align their work with deeper traditions of human understanding. K’s work has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, WIRED, Bookforum, Artforum, Lithub, The Warburg Institute, and the Institute of Network Cultures.

Emily Martinez (they/she) is a new media artist working with machine learning, queer methodologies, and consensual tech. She is a 1st generation Miami Cuban and a self-taught coder who believes in the tactical misuse of technology. Her art has been exhibited internationally, mostly through collaborations with Anxious to Make and Queer AI. Her latest project, Ultimate Fantasy is a collection of short stories, poetry and art generated by Queer AI, an artificial intelligence trained on a corpus of queer theater. When Emily is not working, she is learning to love and doing her energy work.

Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living. She creates performances inviting viewers to engage. To remote control her dates. To be followed. To welcome her in as their human smart home. To attend a party hosted by artificial intelligence. Lauren is the creator of p5.js, an open-source creative coding platform that prioritizes inclusion and access, and an associate professor at UCLA Design Media Arts. She has been recognized as a United States Artist Fellow, Sundance New Frontier Fellow, Eyebeam Fellow, and Creative Capital Grantee.

Please join us in welcoming Maya Dunietz back to Bemis to celebrate Root of Two, the book and the exhibition, at the Bemis Center on September 17, 2022. Included throughout the day will be two performances, a hands-on musical score workshop, and a celebration to release the exhibition catalogue. Bites and drinks will be served. RSVP for this event here.

September 17, 2022

2pm – 6pm CT

2 PM: Root of Two performance by Carmina Escobar + Dorian Wood

3:30 PM: Score workshop with Maya Dunietz + Keren Rosenbaum

4:30 PM: Catalogue Release + Remarks

5 PM: Root of Two performance by Maya Dunietz + Keren Rosenbaum

Bemis Center for
Contemporary Arts

724 S. 12th Street
Omaha, NE 68102