(edited by) Marko Bauer, Andrej Škufca – ŠUM#11: Hypersonic Hyperstitions

edited-by-marko-bauer-andrej-skufca-sum11-hypersonic-hyperstitions-drustvo-galerija-boks-_-mgmsum-_-projekt-atolok

Društvo Galerija Boks / MG+MSUM / Projekt Atol, ISSN 2335-4232, English, 275 pages, 20’19, Slovenia

Printed publications are expanding their role as they develop and stabilise other cultural forms. This includes the ‘augmented catalogue’ featuring a number of essays, through to the edited collection of conference proceedings. This special issue of ŠUM journal is one further example: the edition is developed by Marko Peljhan to produce content that overlaps with his Slovenian pavilion exhibition at the Venice Biennial: “Here we go again…System 317”. The installation is centred on a full-scale model of a hypersonic aircraft system, appropriating, combining and hacking “actual US, Russian and Chinese blueprints”. Here it has inspired seven texts along with an appendix. These are mostly speculating about typically military forms of ‘hyperstitions’, whose definition is ‘the transmutation of fictions into truth’. The texts all deeply elaborate on speculative futures, using theory-fiction and hard science-fiction schemes. In particular, Luciana Parisi and Reza Negarestani’s contributions use two very different structures (a story, and a collection of minimal essays) to shed light on distant or very near future scenarios. An intricate collective exercise in the elaboration of the present from a distant clue, the journal has been distributed in various places, including the above mentioned pavillion, and is also free to download.