Over the course of the 20th century artists have sought to engage aesthetic and social potential latent in traditionally non-artistic sites. Such endeavors seek to activate both artistic and non-artistic communities while privileging the often ephemeral and social interactions that arise, rather than a singular art object or exhibition gallery practice. Service Media contains a collection of 16 essays, artist projects, an interview, and a syllabus around and about socially engaged art practice. Each contribution independently defines, critiques and celebrates art’s action beyond and outside the white cube, “creating community within a community.” Edited by Toronto-based artist practitioner, Stuart Keeler,  Service Media features … Read more

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“Like us, palm trees are imports, and seem to come from everywhere but here,” writes a reporter for the Los Angeles Times in an article lamenting the dying days of the once-ubiquitous palm trees of L.A. Named for those iconic imported exotics that flank the boulevards of America’s strangest city, Palm Trees is a collection of poems characterized by a revved-up, ruminative musicality, and it issues its swan song in a voice that channels the restless globalism of America in the new century. The poems shuttle from airport to boardroom, boardroom to living room, making the kind of foreboding observations … Read more

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Joel Craig’s poems first reach out with quiet Midwestern sincerity–precise craft mixed with personal invention–but quickly thicken: “Let me try to lay out what I think I understand” leads to “Las Vegas / and the end of Western history.” Ethical without being political, popular without being pop, personal without being sentimental, Craig sings of how we are “stuck near a river / [we] can feel the evidence of / but can’t imagine.” Filled with elegies to aging rock ‘n’ rollers, explorations of skipping romance, and studied frustration with the world as it appears (and a sincere belief that quiet hands, … Read more

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The city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia hosts public dance lessons most nights on a newly revitalized riverfront directly in front of prime minister Hun Sen’s urban home. Shortly before dusk, much of the city gathers to bust a few Apsara moves and learn a couple choreographed hip-hop steps from a slew of attractive young men at the head of each group. Outside the bustling capital city, the provinces come alive, too, as the nation’s only all-girl political rock group sets up concerts that call into question the international garment trade, traditional gender roles, and agriculture under globalization. Cambodia is changing: not … Read more

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THE BRIGHTEST THING IN THE WORLD: 3 ESSAYS FROM THE INSTITUTE OF FAILURE is a collection of essays that touch on seating strategies, Dick Cheney, cuckoo clocks, the Fibonacci series, butterflies and old friends. These threads weave together like a tapestry and by their accumulated resonance create an impression of loss and longing. As in Sebald’s Rings of Saturn, the reader passes through an associative experience. These are the essays of a poet; like a performance of words, each verb is as active as a muscle. While every sentence tends to its end, the reader resists its inevitable conclusion. This … Read more

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Derived in form from Aristotle’s “Minor Work” of the same title, this variation of ON MARVELLOUS THINGS HEARD explores a range of literary appropriations of music, in terms of translation and metamorphosis. Part investigation, part inventory, and partinvention (in the musical sense: a composition in simple counterpoint), this poetically-driven essay assays the narrating subject as she assays the subjects of literature, of music, and of silence.

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Kordian is a Polish classic written in 1833 by Juliusz Słowacki and features an amalgam of revolutionary spirit, tradition, modernist bravado and suffering–topics navigated by a young Romantic protagonist after whom the play is named. Within the canon of Polish literature Kordian offers pivotal insight into the development of Poland’s Romantic movement (her literary golden age), and Polish literature as a whole. The Green Lantern Press is pleased to publish the play’s first English translation by Gerard T. Kapolka. Illustrations by Lilli Carré and silk screen covers by Aay Preston-Myint. This book was published in an edition of 500.

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Visions for Chicago is a politically charged public art project taking place in front yards, empty lots and public spaces throughout Chicago, Illinois during a historic mayoral and city council election season. The question of “What is your vision for Chicago?” is important at this time because the mayor and the city council he controlled for over 20 years are retiring and the political culture of corruption, defeat and disengagement they have encouraged has an opening and opportunity to be changed. But change doesn’t happen in the small and busy window of time afforded by elections, it happens over long … Read more

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THE MUTATION OF FORTUNE documents the parallel fortunes of one protagonist living multiple lives. As she navigates her Märchen landscape, she goes through varied transformations, becoming at times a wolf, a thief, an amputee, a hunter, a rabbit and a runaway. She sleeps with swans and suffers a sister that bites the back of her knees. The world of this book is unstable, delicious and carries with it an inexplicit sense of danger. Printed in an edition of 500 with silk screen covers by Aay Preston-Myint, this book hosts a series of color plate collages made by the author.

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forge (v.) To create by hammering. To fake, invent, contrive, devise, excogitate, or formulate. To move ahead steadily. To shape, form, work, mold, or fashion. To make out of components, often in an improvising manner. Collaged from language collected using the obscure keyword “Finkl”—obituaries, case histories, old Chicago legends, gossip columns, political speeches and online posts—Forgery is a lyrical essay on industrial and personal dislocation—a strange choreography of urban conquest and collapse—centered on a 130-year-old Chicago steel forge. Founded in 1879 by German immigrant Anton Finkl, A. Finkl & Sons Co. still operates today on Chicago’s Near North Side. Last … Read more

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