BOOK LAUNCH: OLAF NICOLAI's ESCALIER DU CHANT
BOOK PRESENTATION: HELMUT VOLTER's CLOUD STUDIES

As part of the Spector Books residency at X Marks The Bokship, we invite you to join us for the book launch of ESCALIER DU CHANT and CLOUD STUDIES with a discussion with HELMUT VOLTER and OLAF NICOLAI about their recent and ongoing work with SPECTOR BOOKS.

About the books:

Helmut Volter: Cloud Studies / Wolkenstudien / Etudes des nuages
Spector Books 2011 ISBN 9783940064998
£34.50

Clouds are fleeting entities – studying them so as to correctly classify, name and read their forms was considered in the 19th and early 20th centuries an important step in coming to understand the secrets of the atmosphere. In its early stages photography offered scientists completely new ways of depicting clouds. They used cameras to make precise, lifelike images, which provided in turn insights into the interaction of clouds and the atmosphere. Helmut Völter's Cloud Studies presents six different stations of scientific cloud photography, from its beginnings in the 1880s to the images made by the first weather satellites in the 1960s. Each of the six chapters represents a very different scientific and photographic perspective of clouds. Essays by Marcel Beyer. Parallel text English, German and French throughout.

NEW TITLE:

Olaf Nicolai: Escalier Du Chant
Spector Books 2012 ISBN 9783940064653
£78.50

How can songs reflect political events? How does a song become a political song? The artist Olaf Nicolai invited eleven international composers to write songs that reference political events which were of current relevance to them. Without prior announcement, a total of 58 songs were performed as a-cappella pieces on twelve Sundays in 2011 on the central staircase of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Visitors to the museum found themselves as actors in a staged performance for brief instances of time. The publication “Escalier du Chant” presents excerpts from the songs and commentaries by the composers in the form of 58 music sheets; the accompanying booklet contains various photographs of the performances. Including songs by: Tony Conrad, Georg Friedrich Haas, Georg Katzer, Liza Lim, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Enno Poppe with Marcel Beyer, Rolf Riehm, James Saunders, Elliott Sharp, Mika Vainio, Jennifer Walshe.

This event is co-organised with Anagram Books.