LRLX PUBLICATION 6: Placeless
Released December 2021
In 2015, the cover of the first LRLX publication stated, “The Living Room Light Exchange is always located in a place.” Six years later, LRLX Publication 6 is Placeless. After many years of being rooted, our planetary circumstances, the earthly unrooting of all things, require that we—the organizers and community members of LRLX—examine placelessness in the context of not only this Bay Area community but the greater macrocosmic condition. This becoming placeless that many humans and nonhumans have already experienced, through a global pandemic, a political crisis, and a lack of will from leadership, has been normalized. The speculation of collapse that Octavia Butler describes is here: environmental, political, and social infrastructural breakdown. Placeless aims to consider the transformative experience of placelessness that the world, in its interconnected, technological, geopolitical, climactic, and migrational conditions, increasingly propels beyond a survival threshold.
Our sixth annual publication features work by Jenny Odell, nkiruka oparah, Char Stiles, LRLX NY organizers Sarah Burke and Nicholas O'Brien, Marisa Elena Duarte and Jacob Meders, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a survey of LRLX season 7 by Helen Shewolfe Tseng, and a special edition textile print book wrap by Ranu Mukherjee. Placeless is designed by Justin Carder.
Please email us to purchase the amazing special edition textile print book wrap.
LRLX PUBLICATION 5: RARE EARTH — THE GROUND IS NOT DIGITAL
RELEASED October 2020
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The Earth is not a historical subject waiting to be activated by industrial-techno capitalist logic in “new” digital space. Yet, rare earth elements are intimately—and invisibly—entangled within daily life. The fifth annual publication of the Living Room Light Exchange is a large format broadsheet that features work by artists Praba Pilar, Carrie Hott, Maya Weeks, a unique edition rare earth element postcard designed by Tiare Ribeaux, a survey of LRLX season 6 by Elisabeth Nicula, and an introduction by micha cárdenas. Rare Earth: The Ground is Not Digital explores the conundrum of technologies “of(f) the ground” (Parikka, 2015), future natures, climate precarity, and proposes rethinking the entanglements of human activities that place a collectively inherited rare Earth at risk.
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The Special Edition publication 5 includes a complete set of 24 rare earth mine postcards created by Tiare Ribeaux. It is available in a limited run of 18.
LRLX PUBLICATION 4: Spellwork — Technologies and conjurings
RELEASED October 2019
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The Living Room Light Exchange’s fourth annual publication, Spellwork: Technologies and Conjurings calls forth the techno-witches, wizards, sorcerers, animists, and magicians. Featuring LRLX artists Morehshin Allahyari, LaTurbo Avedon, Ingrid Burrington, Yetunde Olagbaju, and Cassie Thornton, Spellwork provokes the possibility that technology and magic have always been entangled rituals. These artists explore the double bind of magic in technology and the technology of magic. This publication also includes a limited edition Silicon Beach crystal pendant bookmark by artist Nina Sarnelle and a survey of LRLX season 5 by Bay Area arts writers. Together we embrace the technologies of witches, demons and goddesses, and we seek the benign magic of the everyday.
LRLX PUBLICATION 3: after the internet
RELEASED October 2018
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What comes after the Internet?
The feature theme of the Living Room Light Exchange’s third publication tackles the question of future networks: somewhere between utopian dreams and dystopian net neutrality collapses lies alternative possibilities of a network that could be otherwise.
LRLX PUBLICATION 2: STATE CHANGE
released may 2017
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We're thrilled to announce our second published book, STATE CHANGE: Publication Two!
The book features commissions of new works from new media artists, writers, and media theorists in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, a nexus of the technology industry, and from satellite Light Exchanges in New York, Paris, and Tel Aviv. This is the second series of award winning curatorial publications, gathering the work of current new media artists who question the role of technology, extraction, avatars, surveillance, and more.
Publication Two was printed as a limited edition run of 200 books, 140 pages, color, each containing a bookmark of “Fuck Trump” protest stickers by artist Jenny Odell. The launch of this book was made possible by an Alternative Exposure grant from Southern Exposure Gallery in San Francisco, CA, and the Andy Warhol Foundation.
Participating artists include: 100 DAYS ACTION, LaTurbo Avedon, Liat Berdugo, BlinkPopShift, Kevin Chen, Alex Cruse, Laura Hyunjhee Kim, James David Lee, T.J. Demos, Benjamin Gaulon, Tanya Gayer, Desiree Holman, Parker Higgins, Jason Huff, Rao Li, Rose Linke, Charlie Macquarie, Tom Marioni, Takako Matoba, Forrest McGarvey, Elisabeth Nicula, Jenny Odell, Rebecca Ora, A. Laurie Palmer, Rick Prelinger, Andy Puls, Eden Redmond, Tiare Ribeaux, Antonio Roberts, Dorothy Santos, Caroline Sinders, Theo Triantafyllidis, Lee Tusman, Elia Vargas, Emily Wick.
This book was designed by Natalie Sims.
LRLX PUBLICATION 1
released may 2015
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The Living Room Light Exchange is a place. But, these pages are not a living room in Oakland or the Bay; they will travel. These pages will live on shelves and tables, add to stacks and make things taller. These pages have words and images, and carry ideas.
Contributors: Jeremiah Barber, Liat Berdugo, Kevin Chen, Paul Clipson, Christina Corfield, Robb Godshaw, Laura Hyunjhee Kim, James David Lee, Wei Li, Rose Linke, Chip Lord, Charlie Macquarie, Emily Martinez, Margaret McCarthy, Elisabeth Nicula, Nicholas O'Brien, Jenny Odell, Rebecca Ora, Andy Puls, Ingrid Rojas, Dorothy Santos, Tara Shi, Natalie Sims, Elia Vargas, and Joe Veix.
With immeasurable gratitude to Rose Linke, who joined us in making this publication a reality; Natalie Sims, our world-class designer and brilliant thinker; and to SoEx's Alternative Exposure grant, which brought the ink to these pages.