International Neighborhood Verlag, ISBN: 9783944960012, German, English, French, 278 pages, 2014, Germany

Using print as a subversive gesture might seem tricky, as the immobility of the print medium doesn’t immediately lend itself to subversion. But one simple way to accomplish this task is to host material which is not supposed to be spread and even less to be permanently preserved on a paper page. In this anonymously authored book, what is broken is discretion, one of the key elements of business development in a competitive capitalist environment. Discretion can produce clans, lobbies and enclaves of power through important information that is shared exclusively among its members. Contacts is then simply a compilation of business cards belonging to leading decision-makers in the fields of art, media, politics and culture. The anonymous author states that it has been produced after ten years of “excessive networking.” What it does is to rupture the trust enabled in the small piece of paper exchange, where the information printed on it is meant to remain “confidential,” and within the closed circle. The hierarchy behind the “45 millimetres of power,” as the author defines it, is then dismantled, potentially opening new opportunities to the excluded. The book is thus a “strategic privacy leak,” to be wisely used, in order not to be wasted (the author recommends no spam, but personal nurture). Readers who elect to contribute their own collected business cards, scanned and sent to the publishing house, will get a free copy of the next edition. The personal media subversion continues…