Spare Parts: The Last Book
“The Last Book kindles creation-fires of a new kind; it marks the birth of the technological illuminated manuscript. With texts by Mary Gaitskill, drawings by Davina Semo, videos by Leslie Thornton, and sound by Greg Landau, this hybrid folio demands to be man-handled with care, to be rewound and fast-forwarded, to be read and touched. This jeweled and inlaid vellum reveals the book as fetish, book as master controlling and prescribing our movements, book as monster: it inaugurates a novel reading ritual–part riot, part cutting-arcane. The book at last dead? Long Live the Last Book!”
-Gabriela Jauregui, author of Controlled Decay
The Last Book: This Ain’t Your Grandson’s Kindle
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- The Last Book: This Ain’t Your Grandson’s Kindle
- Steve Fagin's Introduction to The Last Book Performance
- A Video on The Last Book Performance
- Kimberli Meyer, Director of the MAK Center, on The Last Book
- Mian Mian, Shanghai-based author, on her The Last Book Performance
- Bill Horrigan, Media Director of the Wexner Center, on The Last Book
- Participant Biographies
On April 26, 2009 The Last Book was performed at the Schindler House, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles. For this project, the haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin wished to resuscitate the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. Perhaps electronic technology could be used, not to leave the book on the dustbin of history, but to reconstitute a forgotten past where words and images danced in each other’s arms.
To this end the haudenschildGarage constructed a one of a kind book that included text, drawings, moving images and sounds. Its construction in the medieval, supersized tradition consisted of three illuminated folios each eighteen and a half inches high, thirteen inches wide and three inches deep.
To make this more than a dirge for the dead, a proper Joycian Wake, we incorporated into our project the live and kicking writing skills of Mary Gaitskill (Two Girls Fat and Thin), the macabre visual lyricism of Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred in Hell) and YouTube, the MySpace-with-a-twist drawings of Davina Semo, the retro-futurist music mix of Greg Landau, and as the piece de resistance, Shanghai’s notorious and ever so talented bad girl author Mian Mian as one of our readers with Monica Jovanovich and the Kindle. This bouillabaisse was concocted by Steve Fagin.
Other Last Book participants included Eloisa Haudenschild (producer and line producer), Monica Jovanovich (stage manager), John DeMerritt (book binding), Joel Swanson (graphic design), Tad Linfesty (easel and book fabrication), Jim Nisbet (book fabrication), William Brent and Marco Llanos (electronics/technical coordination), Hsiufang Chen and Kate Wall (printing), Alastair Johnston, Teddy Cruz, and Alan Rosenblum (consultants), and Patricia Montoya (video assistant). The Last Book performance photography by Yvonne Venegas and video documentation by Merve Kayan.
The haudenschildGarage wishes to thank Kimberli Meyer, Director of the MAK Center.
We would like to thank Mian Mian for both honoring us with her first ever English language reading, her reading of The Last Book at the Schindler House on April 26, 2009, and this first English language writing effort for our documentation of ...
The haudenschildGarage asked Kimberli Meyer to write about The Last Book performance at the Schindler House. On April 26, 2009 The Last Book was performed at the Schindler House, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles. For this proj ...
On April 23, 2008 the haudenschildGarage held a Garage Talk with Shanghai-based author Mian Mian which included a premiere reading from her forthcoming novel, Panda Sex and a conversation about her infamous novel, Candy. From April 20 - 26, 200 ...
From April 20 - 26, 2009 Shanghai-based author Mian Mian was an Artist-in-Residence at the haudenschildGarage as part of the hG, Spare Parts project The Last Book. On April 23, 2008 the haudenschildGarage held a Garage Talk with Mian Mian whic ...
The haudenschildGarage commissioned Bill Horrigan to write about the hG, Spare Parts project The Last Book and his experience of the performance. The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of ...
