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Quantification Trilogy Reader is a document from the future. The artist’s original three para-fictional films Quickeners (2014), Liminals (2017), and I Can See Forever (2018) interweave themes of marginalized cultural- and scientific-belief systems; the line between transcendental experience and madness; and the changing human body in the wake of technological evolution.

For me, [Shaw's] film Liminals was one of the great highlights of 2017 and the Venice Biennale. It's a piece I just couldn't get out of my mind.

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Concerned with the shape of future societies, the three films are made up of reworked archival film footage, cinema vérité and television documentary styles respectively. The films then each utilize striking digital transformations, both as a visual technique and as a representation of altered states. The publication, an extension of the artist project and installation, renders these narratives through full-colour, full-bleed stills which become immersive visual experiences. Each narrative is followed by the original films’ voiceover transcripts, as well as parallel and critical texts exploring the questions that the project provokes.

Contributors

1. Jeremy Shaw

   works in a variety of media to explore altered states and the cultural and scientific practices that aspire to map transcendental experience. His films, sculptures and installations have been exhibited extensively around the world, including solo shows at MoMA PS1 (US), Schinkel Pavillon (DE) and MOCA (CA), and been featured in surveys and group exhibitions such as the 57th Venice Biennale (IT), Manifesta 11 (CH), Stedelijk Museum (NL) and Palais de Tokyo (FR). In 2018, he was awarded a residency at the Hammer Museum (US) and was the winner of the 2016 Sobey Art Award (CA).

2. Nora N. Khan

   is a writer and critic, currently serving as the acting editor of Rhizome and is part of the Digital and Media faculty at RISD. Her work examines emerging issues within digital visual culture and philosophy of emerging technology. Khan’s art and technology criticism has been published in various magazines and publications, and has contributed commissioned essays for exhibitions at Serpentine Galleries, Chisenhale Gallery, the Venice Biennale, and Kunstverein in Hamburg and in a number of artist’s books. She wrote a book with Steven Warwick, Fear Indexing the X-Files (Primary Information, 2017), on early fan forum culture and online conspiracy theories. Her writing has been honoured and supported by a Critical Writing Grant through the Visual Arts Foundation and Crossed Purposes Foundation, an Eyebeam Research Residency and a Thoma Foundation 2016 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art.

3. Maxwell Stephens

   is an artist, writer and musician. He has collaborated with other artists in contemporary art, music and sound, opera, dance, performance, writing, and set design. He has exhibited and performed widely at international venues such as Artspeak (Vancouver), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Smart Project Space (Amsterdam), the Vancouver Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Witte de With (Rotterdam), the Museum of Applied Arts (Bergen, Norway), the 4th Marrakech Biennale and the 19th Biennale of Sydney. He has also collaborated on public commissions such as The Garden of Future Follies (public sculpture, Toronto, 2016), The Conference at the Council House (public sculpture, Mississauga, 2017), Cake Walk (wall mural and light installation on DJD Centre, Calgary, 2017), Up To This Moment… (video installation in tram station, Toronto, upcoming) and Conference of the Neighbours (public sculpture, Toronto, upcoming).

4. Antonia Hirsch

   was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and received her BFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (London, England). From 1994 to 2010, she lived and worked in Vancouver, Canada, and has been based in Berlin since 2010. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, USA); Salzburger Kunstverein (Austria); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (Taiwan); Tramway (Glasgow, Scotland); Kunstinstituut Melly, FKA Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam, Netherlands); ZKM Museum für zeitgenössische Kunst (Karlsruhe, Germany); and in Canada at Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto). She has been artist-in-residence at institutions such as the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada) and the Cité des Arts (Paris, France), and has received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, Stiftung Kunstfonds, and Hessische Kulturstiftung. Hirsch’s projects and writing have appeared in publications such as C Magazine, Fillip, The Happy Hypocrite, and Triple Canopy. In addition to artist books, she has published two anthologies, Intangible Economies (2012) and Negative Space: Orbiting Inner & Outer Experience (2015). She was an associate editor at Fillip from 2009 to 2015. Her work is held in public collections, including those of the Vancouver Art Gallery (Canada), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), and Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry (Miami Beach, USA).

Produced in collaboration with the Kunstverein in Hamburg, the Esker Foundation, and the Julia Stoschek Foundation

1. Quantification Trilogy Reader
   $50

   The publication brings together full-spread, full-colour stills from Shaw's Quantification Triology films, the film's transcripts, and two critical essays in English and German. The book is printed on a smooth art matte paper, white cover and black edge staining.

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1. Quantification Trilogy Reader Limited Edition
   $100

   The Limited Edition comes housed in a clear acrylic slipcase.

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