10 Sep 2009

Compendium N.6 Pink Laser Beam

COMPENDIUM N.6 PINK LASER BEAM
by This is a magazine, 2009
ISSN 1721-4904
Hard-cover / 180 pages

The title of the 6th printed Compendium from This is a magazine refers to science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick's final novel 'Valis' in which the protagonist receives extra-terrestrial transmissions on a beam of pink light of unknown origin:

God, he told us, had fired a beam of pink light directly at him, at his head, his eyes; Fat had been temporarily blinded and his head had ached for days. It was easy, he said, to describe the beam of pink light; it's exactly what you get as a phosphene after-image when a flashbulb has gone off in your face. Fat was spiritually haunted by that color. Sometimes it showed up on a TV screen. He lived for that light, that one particular color.
'Valis' Philip K. Dick

Pink Laser Beam appears to defy logic, revealing new associations and hidden meanings as it unfolds in time and space. Like Fat's beam of pink light, it attempts to circumnavigate learned modes of perception in order to discover worlds otherwise hidden.

In an edition of 666 copies each containing 180 pages of scored, punch-cut, embossed, drilled and folded works on paper (and plastic) stitched into a hard-bound cold-foil printed cover and then wrapped in a giant poster dust-jacket (on the reverse of which are a series of appendices and related texts, a supplement to the final index of artworks and authors)

With continued attention to DIY reader participation each Pink Laser Beam book includes:
a make your own OMG obelisk by aids-3d / Evolution of 3-space with custom anaglyph-glasses / a picture-disc for the My Cat is an Alien soundtrack MP3 / a hex-sticker by the Center for Tactical Magic / a star-map by Grant Willing / playing cards / a complete (yet invisible) book by J.G. Ballard as served by the Amazon Noir project

www.thisisamagazine.com
www.thisisamagazine.com/pinklaserbeam/compendium.html

Distributed world-wide in specialized bookshops,
and museum/gallery stores by Idea Books
www.ideabooks.nl

See also
www.pinklaserbeam.com

Press images
www.thisisamagazine.com/press

Featured artists
a.a.s group / aids-3d / Amazon Noir project / Andy Simionato / Borna Sammak / Center for Tactical Magic / Damon Zucconi / Donald Roberdeau / Grant Willing / Jacopo Miliani / J.G. Ballard / JODI / Karen ann Donnachie / Laura Brothers / Loshadka / Matt Robinson / My Cat is an Alien / Nikola Tosic / Oliver Laric / Shane Hope / Yoshi Sodeoka

This is a magazine .com
Founded in 2002 in Milan Italy by Donnachie, Simionato & Son, This is a magazine .com has been described as 'a publishing phenomenon'(1), 'the most beautiful magazine on the web'(2), 'a paper sculpture...a book of experimental expression'(3), 'pretentious...fantastic'(4), and 'seriously mind-blowing'(5). Publishing periodic online episodes with artists and researchers working in and around the internet, the project includes a series of award-winning printed compendia.

1 Varoom, Journal for Illustration and Made Images, U.K.
2 D della Repubblica, Italy
3 Ozon Magazine, Greece
4 Contemporary, U.K.
5 crowndozen.com