THE SHAPE photos by Ross Fraser McLean

Darren Banks, Aural Fascination, 2012

The recent-ish exhibition at Generator Projects was documented by top photographer Ross Fraser McLean, and a brief selection can be viewed on the gallery's website: LINK

receipts

Bought a few items:

Beca Lipscombe and Lucy McKenzie - The Inventors of Tradition (Walther König, Köln/Koenig), £21.36

Carter Tutti Void - Transverse (Mute) LP + CD, £14.99

Cut Hands - Black Mamba (Blackest Ever Black) 12", £7.00

groove

Extract from Valerie Solanas - The SCUM Manifesto:

"Great Art" and "Culture":

The male "artist" attempts to solve his dilemma of not being able to live, of not being female, by constructing a highly artificial world in which the male is heroized, that is, displays female traits, and the female is reduced to highly limited, insipid subordinate roles, that is, to being male.

The male "artistic" aim being, not to communicate (having nothing inside him he has nothing to say), but to disguise his animalism, he resorts to symbolism and obscurity ("deep stuff"). The vast majority of people, particularly the "educated" ones, lacking faith in their own judgment, humble, respectful of authority ("Daddy knows best"), are easily conned into believing that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, ambiguity and boredom are marks of depth and brilliance.

"Great Art" proves that men are superior to women, that men are women, being labeled "Great Art", almost all of which, as the anti-feminists are fond of reminding us, was created by men. We know that "Great Art" is great because male authorities have told us so, and we can't claim otherwise, as only those with exquisite sensitivities far superior to ours can perceive and appreciated the slop they appreciated.

Appreciating is the sole diversion of the "cultivated"; passive and incompetent, lacking imagination and wit, they must try to make do with that; unable to create their own diversions, to create a little world of their own, to affect in the smallest way their environments, they must accept what's given; unable to create or relate, they spectate. Absorbing "culture" is a desperate, frantic attempt to groove in an ungroovy world, to escape the horror of a sterile, mindless, existence. "Culture" provides a sop to the egos of the incompetent, a means of rationalizing passive spectating; they can pride themselves on their ability to appreciate the "finer" things, to see a jewel where this is only a turd (they want to be admired for admiring). Lacking faith in their ability to change anything, resigned to the status quo, they have to see beauty in turds because, so far as they can see, turds are all they'll ever have.

The veneration of "Art" and "Culture" -- besides leading many women into boring, passive activity that distracts from more important and rewarding activities, from cultivating active abilities, and leads to the constant intrusion on our sensibilities of pompous dissertations on the deep beauty of this and that turn. This allows the "artist" to be setup as one possessing superior feelings, perceptions, insights and judgments, thereby undermining the faith of insecure women in the value and validity of their own feelings, perceptions, insights and judgments.

The male, having a very limited range of feelings, and consequently, very limited perceptions, insights and judgments, needs the "artist" to guide him, to tell him what life is all about. But the male "artist" being totally sexual, unable to relate to anything beyond his own physical sensations, having nothing to express beyond the insight that for the male life is meaningless and absurd, cannot be an artist. How can he who is not capable of life tell us what life is all about? A "male artist" is a contradiction in terms. A degenerate can only produce degenerate "art". The true artist is every self-confident, healthy female, and in a female society the only Art, the only Culture, will be conceited, kooky, funky, females grooving on each other and on everything else in the universe.

http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm

Nico - The Marble Index

This will always be the best album made by anyone, ever.

The Marble Index is the second solo album by Nico, recorded in 1968 and released in 1969. The album featured long-term associate John Cale, who had worked briefly with Nico during her stint with The Velvet Underground. Cale had an extensive background in various avant-garde settings, working with minimalist composer LaMonte Young, among others. Nico wrote all her own songs on the record and plays the harmonium. The record has influenced a wide array of various artists, such as Coil, Steve Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Jocelyn Pook, Jackson Browne, Elliott Smith and Dead Can Dance. Trouser Press described the album as "Nico's disturbing poetry" set to "even more disturbing music; the result is one of the scariest records ever made. Unlike Chelsea Girl, in which Nico tried to adapt to an outmoded chanteuse tradition, The Marble Index blasts her off to her own universe."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marble_Index_(album) 
 

 Pre-Nico '50s modelling days as Christa Päffgen

Nico's sophomore effort was a dive into the void, a descent to a bottomless ocean, a hypnotic state which awakens the mind through life, reincarnation and beyond: "Lawns Of Dawns" introduces the hypnosis, the mesmerized mind reciting an incantation amidst a cacophonous maze of mirrors. "No One Is There" recalls 18th century romanticism, in what is basically a funereal chamber piece with the strings clashing with each other. "Ari's Song" is a feverish psalm, "Facing The Wind" an obsessive liturgy and a psychotic cabaret piece, while "Julius Caesar" travels even further down the past (the chorus of some ancient tragedy, the ecstasy of a dervish). Eventually, the last two songs reach a terrifying apex. "Frozen Warnings" sets the icy sunset, through which the Valkyries' catastrophic call of "Evening Of Light" heralds Armageddon. http://linvitationausuicide.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/nico-marble-index-1968.html
 

‘My life follows me around’ (Nico)

For most of her old friends from the Warhol scene, CHELSEA GIRL was Nico’s only real solo record because it saw her successfully playing the role in which they’d always known her. The beautiful ‘50s model that La Päffgen had once been had easily adjusted to the superstar ideal. But on THE MARBLE INDEX, Nico became herself for the first time, declaring to her former manager (and manager of The Factory) Paul Morrissey: ‘I don’t want to be beautiful anymore.’ However, just as her obsession with dawn, doorways, borders and shorelines shows, Nico was the true female shaman of her time, a priestess of the doorway no less that mythic Ireland’s Bridgit herself: the troubled gatekeeper whose art straddled language barriers through sheer will power, straddled wide cultural barriers from the shallowness of fashion to the highest most redemptive art, a woman whose life wires were so un-insulated that she turned to heroin because it ‘made my good thoughts run slower and my bad thoughts go away.’ John Cale has commented about how her lack of regular timekeeping made her tambourine impossible to follow during Velvets shows and her lack of respect for musical rhythm so important to the artistic success of THE MARBLE INDEX. Once, during the album’s recording, when she’d showed up hours late on three consecutive days, Cale asked her what her problem with time was. She replied: ‘When I was working in The Actors’ Studio, Elia Kazan told me to do things in my own time. I took him at his word.’ In this corporate world with its increasingly Romanized scheduling, we can only be thankful for Nico’s singular attitude to time keeping. Throw away your time-pieces and embrace THE MARBLE INDEX.
Julian Cope
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/albumofthemonth/nico-the-marble-index
 

Songs such as No One Is There and Frozen Warnings are gorgeous in their bleakness and austerity. When, on Ari's Song, Nico promises her son "light and joy", the words sound strange in her mouth, as if she stands as much chance of experiencing those states as she does of walking on the moon. But I stumbled with Facing the Wind: discordant gusts of harmonium, nagging strings, intermittent percussion like someone banging on a coffin lid and vocals raddled with despair. I could see exactly what Lester Bangs was getting at. The Marble Index is a remarkable record, one with the annihilating beauty of a late Rothko painting, but I can't see a time when I'll feel compelled to play it again. I suspect that if you're ever in the perfect mood to play The Marble Index, then it's probably the last thing you should be playing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/14/difficult-albums-nico

The Marble Index is, more than anything, insolite, uncanny, in the Surrealists’ sense of the word, and, admittedly, an acquired taste, but for you, o my brothers and sisters, in quest of the arcane and incandescent, it is an essential album. In Richard Williams’s bemused liner notes you will find all the biographical information you need: her real name, her wandering narcotic life, her fate. http://www.gadflyonline.com/06-24-02/music-nico.html

 

Yuck 'n Yum AGK @ Wasps 26.05.12 pictures

To the newly-refurbished Wasps studios today at Meadow Mill, where Yuck 'n Yum promoted the hell out of the AGK.

The 2010 AGK winning video by Rachel Maclean: I'm Your Biggest Fan (Paparazzi) - Lady Gaga

zines

Andrew and Alex make charming hosts

Your correspondent strikes a thoughtful pose

assorted punters

AGK action

More punters

Let's karaoke!

Yuck 'n Yum AGK @ Wasps

Wasps Open Studios Sat and Sun, 12-5pm

Many artists will be opening their studio doors to the public between 12-5pm on both days. For details of artists based at Meadow Mill, please click here. There will also be a number of invited guests taking part including Yuck n' Yum, Generator Projects, a collective of 3rd year students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and photographer Ross Fraser McLean.

receipts

Bought a few items:

Eugene Thacker - In the Dust of This Planet (Horror of Philosophy) (Zero Books), £5.37

Friedrich Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy (Oxford World's Classics), £2.10

Hardheads ‎– New York Express (FFRR) 12", £0.30

Zazou presents David Barbarossa

Zazou are delighted to present an exclusive Dundee appearance from David Barbarossa, one of Glasgow’s most respected DJs, with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and a vinyl collection to match. He has often filled in for Mr. Wilkes or Herr Twtich at the legendary Optimo... (Espacio) nights and is considered by many as the third unofficial member of the duo. His record collection comprises a myriad of secret pieces and arcane obscurities, and sometimes builds up in the shape of a Haunted Disco or a Gordon Matta-Clark tri-dimensional wormhole resulting in his house splitting in two. Overall he is known as Wizard Selector and Dancefloor Shaker.

He is one of the residents at Optimo's 'Hung Up!' nights as well as running his own nights 'Wild Combination' & David Barbarossa's 'Thing'.

In the past he's rubbed shoulders behind the decks with luminaries such as James Murphy [LCD Soundsystem] Danielle Baldelli, Todd Terje & Black Disco Devil Club as well as stretching to the outer limits of his record collection whilst adding support to legends like Silver Apples & Roedelius to name but a few.

This is not an event to miss!

£6 entry

LINK

mannequins

The props from my installation Death Paints Red Daubings have found a new home.

They Had Four Years @ Generator Projects 19.05.12 - pictures

To the Generator this evening for their annual graduate showcase. I took a few photos and here they are:

 

Neil Nodzak - Everything made sense... until box

Calvin Laing - Calvin & Viareggio 
 

Romany Dear - March your feet up and down - This has the potential to become a very political exercise 
  

Calvin Laing - Calvin & Paintings
 

Calvin Laing - Mug of David

Soundcloud: AGK 2010 Works Night Out

Now available for free download via SoundCloud:

On Saturday 18 September 2010 Yuck 'n Yum held its inaugural Annual General Karaoke event at City Chambers, Dundee. Attendees enjoyed a dance afterwards to a 'Works Night Out' DJ set selected by Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson.

Tracklist:

Whigfield - Saturday Night
Tamperer - Feel It
 Eiffel 65 - Blue Da Ba Dee
Alice Deejay - Better Off Alone
Dj Sammy - Heaven
Haddaway - What Is Love
Corona - The Rhythm Of The Night
London Boys - Requiem
Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400
Ian Van Dahl - Castles In The Sky
Darude - Sandstorm
System F - Out Of The Blue
Dj Jean - Sandstorm
Binary Finary - 1998
Bbe - 7 Days And One Week
Iko - Digital Delight
Ferrara - Love Attack
Rajan James - Impossible Dreams

receipts

Got paid so I bought a few items:






















Kate Zambreno - Heroines, $12.21 (pre-order)

Mike Kelley - Educational Complex Onwards 1995-2008, £26.73

Mark Leckey - Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore LP, £14.99

Yuck 'n Yum - Guest Zine Project Update

You may recall at the beginning of the year we announced that Val Norris and Michael Lacey were the two artists selected for our guest zine project. Well over the last few months Val and Michael have been busy beavering away and the time is almost upon us to unleash their endeavours into the world. Before we do we thought we would whet your appetite with some tasty pages courtesy of Michael Lacey.

OOH YUM! Michael’s zine entitled ‘Innards’ will be launching soon in Glasgow. We’ll keep you updated through the usual channels.

http://www.yucknyum.com/2012/05/18/guest-zine-project-update/

SoundCloud: Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson winter 2008 launch - "File under: Exotica / Esoterica"

Now available to download via SoundCloud:

Music from the 50s and early 60s, and sounds inspired by the ersatz tropical suburban safari. From the Yuck 'n Yum launch 28.11.08 at Wasps Studios, Dundee.

Tracklist:

Alain Goraguer – Ten Et Tiwa
Martin Denny – Cobra
Dick Hyman – Topless Dancers Of Corfu
Les Baxter – The Ancient Galleon
Vladimir Ussachevsky – Wireless Fantasy
Delia Derbyshire with Barry Bermange – Dreams (Edit B)
Alain Goraguer – La Femme
Martin Denny – Was It Really Love
Fabio Frizzi – Suono Aperto
Nurse With Wound – Coolorta Moon
Glenda Collins – It’s Hard To Believe It
Dick Hyman – Total Bells And Tony
Linda Scott – I’ve Told Every Little Star
Claude Denjean – United We Stand
The Electronic Concept Orchestra – Misty
Ennio Morricone - Mariangela E La Seduzione
Claude Denjean – United We Stand
Mort Garson - Ode To An African Violet

SoundCloud: Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson spring 2011 launch

Now available to download via SoundCloud:

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson with a leisurely Sunday afternoon mix to launch the Yuck 'n Yum spring 2011 issue 24.03.11

Tracklist:

Siegfried Schwab - Anna's Theme
Klaus Nomi - Samson And Delilah (Aria)
Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch - Just You
Coil - Unprepared Piano
Supermax - Love Machine
Geneva Jacuzzi - Love Caboose
Alain Kan - Speed My Speed
Chrisma - Aurora B
Nadia Cassini - Encounters
Gene Pitney - Backstage (I'm Lonely)
Martin Kippenberger - Bang Bang
Anika - Yang Yang
Destroy All Monsters – Vampire
Malaria! – Thrash Me
Chrisma – Black Silk Stocking
Sutcliffe Jügend – Tortures III

SoundCloud: Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson - Yuck 'n Yum launch playlist 26.06.11

Now available to download via SoundCloud:

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson soundtracks the summer 2011 Yuck 'n Yum launch at Superclub studios, Edinburgh.

Tracklist:

Chromatics - Killing Spree
Gina X Performance - Kaddish
Kym Amps - You Don't Know My Name
Opera De Nuit - Boris Transylvania Camp
Steve Davil - Shake Me Up (Hysteric Remix V2)
Venise - Playboy
Neon - Drivin'
Rene Bandaly Family - Tanki Tanki
Azoto - Exalt Exalt
Ganymed - It Takes Me Higher

SoundCloud: Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson autumn 2010 launch

Now available to download via SoundCloud:

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson soundtracks the Yuck 'n Yum autumn 2010 launch, with a playlist that includes doo-wop, horror soundtrack and acid.

Tracklist:

Chris & Cosey - Exotika
Dzeltenie Pastnieki - Kapec Tu Mani Negri
Legowelt - Haunted Arp
Juanita Rodgers - Teenager’s Letter Of Promises
Riz Ortolani - Adulteress' Punishment
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Wild Ambitions
Linear Movement - Way Out Of Living
Led Er Est - Port Isabel
Eurythmics - Sing, Sing
Adolf Stern - More... I Like It
Circuit 7 - The Force
Change - The End
Alan Vega - Wipeout Beat
James T Cotton Feat Ellis Monk - The Second Night Cycle
SPK - Metal Dance (12" Mix)
Linear Movement - The Game

DC's: Some recent works by some of the people who hang around here sometimes

Oscar B

Very proud to announce that my film Death Paints Red Daubings is included in today's installment of the mighty Dennis Cooper's blog: LINK

AGK 2012 PROMO1.

AGK 2012 PROMO1 from yucknyum on Vimeo.

Make a karaoke video oh

Yes, it's that time again! Time to dig out your video camera, borrow a friend's, or use your iPhone... well what else do you do with it? Make phone calls?

You've got a karaoke video to make, pal!

Instead of holding a boring AGM, Yuck 'n Yum decided to heck with professionalism and held an AGK instead! The first two Annual General Karaokes have been leading up to this! It's simple: a karaoke night where all the karaoke videos are made by you!

Some of you will want to make a beautiful video and perform with it yourself – others might have hi-concept ideas, direct the video and choreograph a team of performers around it. Some will be shy and just want to make a video that is so tremendous it will have the audience fighting over the right to sing it. This years event will be held in Chambers East on Saturday 29th of September but we need your video by Aug 31st.

http://agk.yucknyum.com/

SoundCloud: Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson XXXmas minimix

Now available to download via SoundCloud:

DJ Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson with a festive minimix for the Yuck 'n Yum winter 2011 launch at HMC, Dundee 14.12.11 

Tracklist:

Rick Van Der Linden - Bachatel
Robert Rental & Thomas Leer - Day Breaks Night Heals
Pas De Deux - Cardiocleptomanie
Bene Gesserit - Mickey, Please
Book Of Love - Boy
Joy Peters - Don't Loose Your Heart Tonight
Flexx - Love Theme From Flexxy-Ball (You'll Never Change No More)
Sylvester - I Need Somebody To Love Tonight

SoundCloud: Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson Yuck 'n Yum spring 2010 launch

Now available to download via SoundCloud:

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson live and direct from Dundee's HMC, back in the heady days of spring 2010.

Tracklist:

Twilight Ritual – I Never Called You A Dream
Nine Circles – What's There Left
Fabio Frizzi – Main Title (Long Lost Godzilla Demo)
Chris Carter - Interloop
Fall Of Saigon - Blue Eyes
Iko - Model Type A
Big Ben Tribe - Tarzan Loves The Summer Nights
Squires - Hold Me (Instr.)
Jesse Saunders - Waiting On My Angel (Extended)
Liaisons Dangereuses - Kess Kill Fe Show
The Poppy Family - There's No Blood In Bone
Throbbing Gristle - Vow Of Silence
Silent Signals - Waiting For Reaction
Elecktroids - Silicon Valley

Mauve Movies

Leonora Carrington - The Ancestor, 1968

Extract from James Champagne - Grimoire:

 The movie that night was named Idols of Eigenlicht. It was a color film, a collection of short vignettes, some of which lasted a few seconds, others a few minutes, though I don’t believe that any of them exceeded five minutes in length. I lost count of exactly how many of these vignettes I saw, as they seemed to unfold on the screen like a hazy opium dream, lulling my senses into the usual hypnagogic state. I was, fortunately, able to recall a few of the more memorable ones, which I shall now relate.
   The very first vignette took place on a vast, flat arctic field, the sky a blue void unblemished by clouds. In the center of this field was a square etched in black chalk on the icy ground, and drawn inside this square was a circle whose interior was marked with eight lines, each line meeting to form a point in the center. Crouched down at the diagonal cardinal points of this circle were four small creatures who had a very strange appearance. Their bodies were covered in white fur, while their legs and feet resembled those of albino frogs. Their faces were vaguely bat-like, with large pointy ears, while their eyes were hollowed-out black orbs, like empty sockets on a human skull. They were barely moving at all, and appeared to be meditating. In the background, the instrumental song “Nzambi Ia Lufua” by the band known as Whitehouse played throughout this first vignette.
   Then, a woman seemed to rise right out of the snow outside the circle. She was completely covered up in a white sheet, like those cliché ghost costumes one always sees around Halloween time. Into this sheet two eye holes were cut. The right eye hole was just a simple round circle cut in the sheet, but the left eye hole was smaller, and a piece of diamond-shaped fabric was sewn around it, the eye hole located in the center of this piece of fabric, the fabric itself resembling a floral design, reminiscent of some rare species of nosferatu convolvulus. In the woman’s hands there was clasped a immense black rose, just the bulbous head of the flower, with no stem. She slowly marched into the center of the circle in a stately manner, carrying the black rose before her as if it were some sort of holy artifact, or if she were the sole member of a solitary and somber funeral procession. Upon taking her place in the center of the circle, she stood still, as if she had became a statue, while the little furry white creatures began to become animated, as they chattered excitedly to one another, masturbating themselves in pagan abasement. The composition of the scene reminded me of Leonora Carrington’s 1968 painting, The Ancestor.
   The woman began to softly wail in a barbarous tongue as she stooped down to place the black rose in the center of the circle. Kneeling over it so that her left eye hole hovered directly above it, I watched as red droplets began to issue forth from this eye hole, landing with small wet splashes on the flower below. She wept tears of blood on the black rose. It was then that I knew I was witnessing some malefic type of evocation, as the Whitehouse song continued playing in the background like a stellar hymn to some obscure African god of death. Sure enough, green mist began seeping out from the circle, curling around the prone form of the woman, and as the mist rose into the sky it began to stabilize and coagulate into a new form. While all this went on, the sky became dull gray in color, and a tremendous, pulsating black star appeared in the distance. Or maybe it was the mysterious transyuggothian tenth planet known to the initiated as Nu-Isis? The mist formed a shape in the center of this dark planet, and soon the transformation was complete: the summoned entity resembled an enormous mass of ears, ears of all shapes and sizes and from all different species, in the shape of an orb, an orb that was the size of the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows in New York. This bizarre god (whose name I later found out was Urluk) hovered above the woman, the ears throbbing in grotesque undulations, and it emitted a weird metallic buzzing sound, like the kind cicadas make. The woman looked up, then took off her white sheet. Underneath, it was revealed that she was actually a quivering, holothurian mutant, just with a long flowing mane of black hair streaming atop her virescent skull. Then the vignette ended while the dark planet hummed over this surrealistic tableau.
   Here was another vignette: the scene unfolded in a bedroom, and the only objects in the room were a bed, a night stand, and, against the wall near the door, a holy water fount. The room was illuminated by a bare light bulb which hung from the ceiling. I watched as the door to the room opened and a teen boy entered. As he did so, a gong sounded from off screen. The boy looked to be somewhere between the ages of 16-18, with short reddish-brown hair and intelligent blue eyes, his face achingly beautiful and without blemish. The boy was naked, and his penis was quite impressive to look at. He closed the door behind him, stared at the bed. Then he dipped his hand in the holy water fount and did the sign of the cross. With that done, he walked over to the bed and lay down on it, flat on his stomach, his ass now exposed to the camera. He lied in this manner silently, without moving.
   A minute or so later, the door opened again, and a mysterious figure entered (once again, a gong sounded off-screen). The man was clad in a black robe that draped down the entire length of his bumpy body, and this robe was decorated with a number of cryptic sigils, done in red. His face was blocked from view by a mask which resembled that of an angler fish. Like the boy, the man dipped one of his gloved hands in the holy water fount, only he did the sign of the cross backwards. The masked man walked over to the bed and climbed on it. He stared down at the boy, then lowered his gloved hands until they rested on the boy’s ass cheeks. The man gently opened the ass cheeks, exposing the boy's asshole. The man lowered his masked face to it. Bumblebees began to buzz out of the boy’s asshole. This didn’t shock the masked man, though. He positioned himself so that his mask was faced directly over the asshole, and I watched as the bumblebees flew into the mouth portion of the fish mask, as if they were being swallowed whole, like souls being sucked up. Finally, the bumblebees stopped coming forth and the man let go of the boy’s ass cheeks. He turned to look at the camera, then pulled off his mask. To my shock, he had the face of a giant bumblebee, and I realized that what I had just witnessed was an invocation to Zam Pollum, the queen of all bees! Though in retrospect it could also have been a rite of Beelzebub, who though often linked with flies is also known as the ‘Lord of the Buzzers.'
   I will describe one more vignette, though certainly there were many other ones that would have been just as interesting to choose from. On the screen before me was a vast library, whose ceiling was so high it was shrouded in darkness, so that one was unable to see how far up it truly went. The walls of this library were lined with very tall black bookcases, with about 6-7 feet in between each shelf. The reason for these huge gaps was due to the fact that the shelves were crammed with human beings, humans of all shapes and sizes, some wearing clothes, others completely naked. These humans were neither alive nor dead, rather they existed in a twilight neither-neither state in between those two states. Thus they were all standing up along the shelves in formation, as if they were in a parade, paralyzed. The library was then a mausoleum of human incunabulum.
   The library itself belonged to an odd-looking race of creatures who I shall try my best to describe. Their heads resembled giant open books, only the pages that made up their faces were blank. The book heads were connected to the bodies of the creatures via three spindly necks covered in purple fur, while the bodies themselves looked like round, bloated Christmas Tree ornaments that had been coated in ichor (I should add here that these necks were adorned with frilly Elizabethan collars). Instead of legs and feet, the creatures thumped along on two thick stumps that looked like grossly overgrown human thumbs (with the curved toenails serving as feet), while in place of arms long green vines protruded from the sides of the creature’s bodies. As if all this wasn’t flamboyantly weird enough, they also wore black and purple capes whose shape brought to one’s mind the semblance of a bat.
   In the vignette, I watched as those very large and odd-looking creatures took humans off the bookshelves and placed them on long wooden reading tables in the center of the room. They would gently lay the paralyzed humans down on the table, then “read” them by placing their vines against the foreheads of the human. By doing so, they read the brains of the humans, extracting memories and dreams as if they were downloading data from a computer. As this process went about, the images that entered in the minds of the creature were displayed on the blank pages of their book heads, the pages flipping as each new memory was extracted and recorded. After they were finished “reading” the human, they would rise from the wooden table and exit the library, stepping onto the street of a futuristic city. They would then go to a public gathering place and wait for a crowd to amass around them. The citizens of the city were small books, only they were books with spider legs. There were also flying hourglasses with the wings of bats. These spider books and bat-winged hourglasses would gather around the book-headed creatures and watch as the pages began to flip, from the first to the last, displaying for the spider books and the bat-winged hourglasses the thoughts and memories of the humans that they had just read. After the book was done, the book-headed ones would return to the library, place their vines back on the foreheads of the human, and download the memories back into the human books, until once again the pages of their faces were blank. They would then return the humans to the bookshelf.  
   Ah-ha, I thought to myself. What I’m looking at here is a society in which books have evolved, become sentient, a world in which books have taken over everything, switched places with humanity. These book-headed creatures are the storytellers of this strange new society, it would seem. A conclusion that anyone would have come to, by my estimates.

http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.fr/2012/04/welcome-to-world-james-champagnes.html

Cheryls

Black Cheryl, 2010

Coloured Cheryl, 2010

Coloured Cheryls, 2012

Cheryl Shame, 2012