The first instalment of The Social Life of the Record, a series of original texts by musicians, fans, critics, collectors, dealers, label owners etc.—reflecting on recording, releasing, listening to, filing, flipping and DJing records today.

Addressing questions parallel to those asked by Paraguay Press’s established The Social Life of the Book, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere plays off its format and inaugurates the new series The Social Life of the Record. It is published as a component of the exhibition of the same name held at castillo/corrales December 2012–January 2013, and extends the project’s triangulation of the identity of New Zealand art and music. London-based artist Paul Elliman evokes relationships between sound and geography; Philadelphia label owner Tom Lax chronicles his involvement with New Zealand music as a fan from afar; New Zealand critic Jon Bywater reflects on vinyl records as a means to ‘physical thinking’; and french collectors Jedrzej Zagorski, François-Xavier Hubert, Sandra Reignoux, Jean-Louis Cayron and Fred Paquet contribute photographs of some of their New Zealand possessions; crossing Hans Christian Andersen with Wilkie Collins.

The fifth in The Social Life of the Book series, Paraguay Press’s collection of commissioned texts dealing with books, and how they engage with the circulation of ideas and the agency of social situations. Die Toilette is an assemblage of text fragments taken from different books by LA-based writer Chris Kraus, conceived and annotated by artists and writers Jon Bywater, Louise Menzies and Marnie Slater. By reading through Kraus’s texts looking for traces of New Zealand, where she grew up, the three Kiwis question the representation of the distant; how it is embodied by characters, situations, language, and in the writing/reading dynamics Kraus creates. The beach, affection and love relationships, the role of the city, intense relations with wildlife–all this and more is at stake in this amazing cut-up.

Designed by Will Holder.

The 5th installment of The Social Life of the Book series is a an assemblage of text fragments taken from different books by LA-based writer Chris Kraus, conceived and annotated by artists and writers Jon Bywater, Louise Menzies and Marnie Slater. By reading through Kraus’s texts looking for traces of New Zealand, where she grew up, the three Kiwis question the representation of the distant; how it is embodied by characters, situations, language, and in the writing/reading dynamics Kraus creates.

The Social Life of the Book is a collection of commissioned texts dealing with books, and how they engage with the circulation of ideas and the agency of social situations. It brings together artists, publishers, writers, designers, booksellers, etc. who consider books less as finished objects or forms but for their disruptive potential and their ability to produce new relationships, new publics and new meanings.

Designed by Will Holder.