Böcker utgivna av APE

A questioning of the role of the camera as obstacle between the photographer and reality continually enters into young Belgian photographer Tom Callemin's artistic process. This inquiry is translated into haunting images that are usually created in the studio, requiring long periods of preparation. His work therefore reads as an ode to slowness. Meticulously constructed black-and-white compositions are contrasted with Callemin's ongoing exploration of the portrait, resulting in a selection of enigmatic and refined images. This book is published on the occasion of a solo exhibition of Callemin's work at FOMU Antwerp and includes a text by Taco Hidde Bakker.

Idiosyncratic Machine is a shape-generating drawing method developed by Kristof Van Gestel in the context of his visual artistic practice. The space in between everyday objects become the basis from which unexpected abstract shapes are systematically derived. The artist then uses these abstract shapes in the creation of networks. Tis is how this publication Idiosyncratic Copy Machine was conceived. In collaboration with Niek Pladet, a new procedure was developed that applies the logic of the Idiosyncratic Machine in the graphic realm. Two shapes were placed on the plate glass of a photocopier, copied and cut out. The resulting remainder then became the original for a new copy, again yielding a reminder to be worked with. These steps were repeated 30 times. This publication is the documentation of that process.

Every conceivable object-from an ordinary thing to a readymade that is presented in an artistic context or an intentionally constructed artefact-once probably had a photographic pendant, either as a document or an artistic interpretation. On the one hand it's a lovely and even comforting idea that things are given a second life, but on the other hand it's a depressing thought that reveals something about our obsession to portray.

The latest episode in F&R R&F's artistic course is tangible and real. Dealing with killing hardware and all its social, political, economical, cultural and sexual ramifications, the Guns?project (2014), which consists of 400 hand?made wooden weapons, leaves no room for ambiguity. It is distinctly about guns, yet the project offers a productive lead to reflect upon a broad set of issues, from the production and distribution of fire weapons, to the guns' presence in our everyday lives and social imaginaries. Not only does the Guns?project reflect the global omnipresence of fire weapons (be it in the media, in the film industry or in our direct environment), it equally touches upon some recent questions concerning the DIY?manufacturing of armory. The Guns?project comes at a time when designer Cody Wilson has conceived the first 3?D printed gun, now owned by the V&A in London, the world's largest design museum. In 2014 a New York Times article indicated how the rise of open?source education has smoothed the path for Al?Qaida militants in distant lands to carry out smaller?scale solo attacks by virtue of hand-­?made artillery. And one shouldn't forget how easily child militias living in the Third World craft their homemade guns from scrap metal at junkyards. Yet, for some, guns are closer to home than we'd sometimes want to believe. Guns are the comfort objects hidden underneath the thousands of pillows in American homes. Guns are the means through which children, for the first time in their lives, learn to enact power dynamics and hierarchies when playing racist Cowboys and Indians games. Guns are the symbols of patriarchy: hard and erected, the guns impertinently point at human flesh, ready to explode. Guns are the tools of oppression and control, the instruments of brutality and domination of the police state. Why have in F&R R&F decided to devote one month of their artistic practice to the creation of a wide collection of harmless weapons made of wood? The answer is very simple. "Weakness is provocative", President Rumsfeld famously observed, "It entices people into doing things that they otherwise would not do. " When your power is weak, you give power to your weakness. With vulnerability and humor as their weapons, F&R R&F happily play the game?and they play it quick and with a slight twist. (Laura Hermann)

Contributions by Elvia Wilk, Graham Harman and Adrian MackenzieIn 1959, the American engineer Paul Baran was charged by the RAND Corporation with the task of designing a telecommunications network resilient enough to survive a nuclear attack. A year later Baran published his proposed solution: a network of distributed nodes without a centralized core. He argued that a distributed network would be indestructible because the connections between its nodes were redundant; multiple connections safeguard a system from total destruction if individual nodes are damaged. A decade later, Baran's distributed relay node architecture formed the conceptual framework for the first system of inter-networked computers, which would become the basis for today's decentralized wireless internet. - Elvia Wilk

019 was never going to remain the only place we worked in. From the start, it's been a laboratory that swings us into unknown directions, constantly sharpening our sense of improvisation and reinvention on the spot. For three years, from 2013 onwards, we made that old welding factory at Dok Noord in Ghent the focal point of our activities. People even started to identify the entirety of our collective, Smoke & Dust, with what was basically only the name of its nineteenth project. We became 019. The whole project turned us upside down. But in doing so, we became aware as well. We understood that the act of occupying and taking possession of the site was not the goal of our work at all. From the inside out, starting with a wooden construction in its interior and up to the billboard at an outside wall and a series of flagpoles on the roof, we gradually developed the place into an assembly of undergrounds for public and artistic encounter, an emerging space for collaboration that was grounded on the premise that all media at our disposal were common grounds to be rediscovered. That's when the work began. That's when things began to move, for real. That's when we realized-artists, architects, designers and the like-we had all turned into scenographers, regardless of our discipline: co-authors of a scene that was constructed out of margins and constraints, participants in a game of give and take that we endlessly play around a display we like to recycle. In the end, that's how 019, our handling of its space through appropriation and dispossession, became the site of a moving practice, a collaborative way of working ready to be moved, reproduced and reinvented elsewhere.

"The Cabinet of Traces" is a collection of 73 traces that were left behind by various artists in residency at Air Antwerp from 2012 onwards. The traces presented in this publication form a diverse collection of objects, drawings, little art works, letters, and clothes. Likewise a catalogue of an ethnographic collection, this publication provides all standard technical details with each trace: material, dimensions, title and the artist who created it. Each trace bears its own story. "The Cabinet of Traces" remembers these stories, while feeding new ones. Memories are constructions and the traces in the publi-cation form the basis from which these memories can be created. "The Cabinet of Traces" is a tool that feeds the imagination. It will be passed on to future artists in residency in order to evoke a reaction. New artists will extend the collection.

Dutch artist Jan Hoek engages with the nasty, funny, painful or touching things that happen when photographing people. His work reflects the often tricky ethics involved in the relationship between the photographer and model. Hoek saw the Masai people photographed time and again in the same way: jumping in a natural setting while wearing traditional clothing and jewellery. Nowadays, however, more Masai are living in towns with all the modern conveniences that entails, like mobile phones, cars and trendy sneakers. For this photo series, he gathered seven urban Masai in an attempt to find a new way to photograph them. The resulting portraits are both personal and absurd.