Unlikely 2.0


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Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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Sensoria
Kane X. Faucher reviews the book

Shadow Film by Matina Stamatakis - Click to EnlargeBooks of photographs, albeit easier on the eyes and so therefore easier to consume than heady texts, can be hit or miss. When aesthetic matters are based on issues of taste rather than the inherent conceptual merit of the work itself, it can be very difficult for a collection of photographs to rise up beyond the parameters of what one likes or dislikes.

Matina Stamatakis' newly released collection abides by a rigorous yet nested code, a kind of unifying thematic that truly harmonizes the collection as a self-contained totality. It is not merely the images in isolation that delight and give pause for reflection, but the way that these images communicate with one another. These are hardly a Sunday afternoon hobbyist photographer's project, but rather betray Stamatakis' deeply sensual preoccupation with textured landscapes. There is, in nearly every one of the images, a fidelity to the use of text to provide these textures, streaming and coalescing everything from Chinese pictographic marks to gangland tagging. It is not just the marks that provide for the viewer vivid texture, but the surfaces upon which these marks are made. In the opening series in this volume, "Graffiti Papyri", there are noticeable Dadaist inflections as clots of text are overlaying each other upon seemingly found materials that are battered in way reminiscent of ancient papyri found in Jordan. In "Beauty in Chaos" and "Tracer", Stamatakis projects Chinese text upon apparent nocturnal backdrops replete with neon blurs. The dilapidation of her chosen materials is certainly bringing the "gutter to the shutter."

Graffiti Papyri 6 by Matina Stamatakis - Click to EnlargePerhaps the crowning pieces in this volume would be the stark diptych, "Origami Asylum 1" and "Origami Asylum 2" which, apart from demonstrating Stamatakis' highly capable eye, appears to pay homage to the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault. The Origami asylums with their intricate folds bespeaks of a complex clinical image that is both Baroque and menacing in its grainy black and white presentation.

To follow the "orientalizing" line of Stamatakis' work is to miss out on the more intriguing critical response her mixed media is making on postmodern photography. Her occasional focus on decontextualized minutiae recalls Mark Kessel's daguerrotypes, but are executed with a sensibility for vibrant colour combinations that seem to pulse in the image. The use of collage is generally on the order of attentive minimalism at times, always second to the texture created by the concatenation of items. Stamatakis' subjects, be them isolated sections of flowers or manipulated light bulbs, do not overwhelm the viewer's attention, but are rather cast in a sort of eerie yet eloquent silence.

Psyren 4 by Matina Stamatakis - Click to EnlargeOther highlights in this chic and svelte volume include "Lily Codes with Ted Warnell": a stark and postmodern nod to medieval herbaria filtered through a satirical mathesis universalis, arrayed in the muffled and sterile quality of a museum exhibit under minimal light. The liquescent nature of "Lumen" and "a)b)c" bring to the fore broad bands in luminary overflow with a complementary austerity in presentation.

If this collection of photographs are but a small sample of Stamatakis' wide-ranging talents with the lens and the darkroom, then we will doubtless be privy to whatever newly intrepid works of vivacity and conceptual puissance this artist will offer up in future.


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Kane X. Faucher is a doctoral candidate at the University of Western Ontario's Centre for the Study of Theory & Criticism in London, Canada. He has published in several academic and literary journals both online and in print. He also has published three novels, Urdoxa (2004), Codex Obscura (2005), and Fort & Da (2006). His web page is at http://www.geocities.com/codex1977.