NON PLUS ULTRA
Copenhagen
nonplusultracph@gmail.com
www.non-plus-ultra.dk
Rosaire Appel: Serenades (2021)
Serenades is a chapbook by Rosaire Appel. In Serenades, Appel is exploring how songs and ambient sound mix with each other.
152 x 228. Saddle-stich bound. Edition of 60 copies, printed on 250/135 gsm recycled paper. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2021.
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Our languages are what connect us. Abstract visual language is the territory I am exploring.
I used to write, then I drew writing. I bridged the gap between verbal writing and its non-verbal calligraphic counterparts through asemic writing. Asemic writing is a kind of mark making that looks like writing but has no semantic value. It is ancient as well as contemporary. (See Peter Schwenger’s scholarly study “Asemic The Art of Writing” (2019). Asemic writing enabled me to explore architectural structures of language without adding furniture. I drew abstract sentences and paragraphs, poems as well as entire stories. I also drew abstract comics and graphic novellas. I have created numerous visual books from this work, both one-of-a-kind and commercially printed.
Expanding my exploration of mark-making languages led me to sound. Sound’s written language, music, consists of staves and notes. But what of sound that’s outside of music, the ambient sound that is always present everywhere. Since sound is invisible, it is wide open to visual representation. Some of my drawings delve into interior regions of a sound, others explore duration and pattern, intervals and vibrations. I invent rather than transcribe. I have sometimes used the term asemic music to categorize this work.
I live in New York which, like any urban center, has a rich acoustic environment. Though the presence of concrete and steel is stable and unchanging, no two seconds are ever audibly the same.
Rosaire Appel
www.rosaireappel.com
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32 pages // ISBN:978-87-93828-11-7 // review // pdf
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Danni Storm & Væi Ellen: Ene (2021)
Ene er et illustreret poesihæfte af Danni Storm og Væi Ellen.
Hæftet indeholder fjorten skrivemaskineskrevne digte af Danni Storm. Et udvalg af konkretdigte, akrostikon og andre eksperimenter med skrivemaskinens restriktioner. På hæftets forside samt midte, ses i alt otte lyserøde glitterformationer lavet af billedkunstner Væi Ellen.
Hæfte, 24 sider. 120x170. Trykt på 250/135g genbrugspapir. Udgivet af Non Plus Ultra, i 30 håndnummererede eksemplarer, august 2021.
24 sider // ISBN: 978-87-93828-12-4 // pdf
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Joshua Smith: By (2021)
By by Joshua Smith is a chapbook featuring eighteen minimal and concrete poems.
One or two words wrestle and fall apart before they quite win the point. Yet something stares out at you from these smashed-up vowels and consonants, like a traffic accident, or a Chamberlain sculpture, an eye or an oh.
- Aram Saroyan
Broken, partial, fractured, distorted—is this poetry in the age of CAPTCHA? In thirty-seven words, Joshua Smith makes us feel the possibilities—and vulnerabilities—of poetic language in contemporary culture.
- Johanna Drucker
Sometimes it’s like we’re in a lab, looking at a language isolated on slides. Sometimes we’re a universe away, looking at the language through a telescope, catching it in small events. By is a book of economy, humor and vision. I have already used more words, describing it, than it itself contains. And am no nearer to explaining away the stillness at the center of it.
- Josh Bell
Work by Joshua Smith may be found at jsmith.bio.
Saddle stitch bounded. Printed on 250/135 gsm recycled paper, in 50 copies. A6: 105 x 148. 24 pages. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2021.
24 pages // ISBN: 978-87-93828-09-4 // pdf
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Kevin Stebner: Rostellum (2021)
Rostellum is a chapbook by Kevin Stebner featuring ten visual typewriter pieces all in blue and red. Typewritten on a Remington Performer. Printed on 250/135 gsm recycled paper, A5: 148 x 210. 24 pages. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2021.
Kevin Stebner is an artist, poet and musician from Calgary, Alberta. He produces visual art using old videogame gear, and produces music with his chiptune project GreyScreen, post-hardcore in his band Fulfilment, as well as alt-country in the band Cold Water. His first book of poems, Sunshine Policy, is out from Straw Books. Stebner has spent the quarantine preparing two new manuscripts, his first novel, and a large amass of typewriter visual poems. He is also the proprietor of Calgary's best bookstore that's in a shed, Shed Books.
24 pages // ISBN: 978-87-93828-10-0 // pdf
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Derek Beaulieu: Brevflodslette (2021)
Brevflodslette is a concrete poem made with Letraset by Derek Beaulieu. A6 leporello publication printed on 250 gsm recycled paper. Edition of 48 copies. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2021.
Whirlpools, the many sounds of the water or the river of letters. It gurgles and ripples, hisses and hums, and not only the title of the piece suggests a correspondence between the information transported by the river, but by the letter and by time. We're on our way somewhere. All this can be read and seen in Derek Beaulieu's beautiful visual and spatial poetry, and especially in Brevflodslette which continues to fold-out and unfold in consistent and inciting ways. The poet's style is recognizable, his voice clear, the reading of the poem not easy to finish.
– Martin Glaz Serup
Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty collections of poetry, prose, and criticism, including two volumes of his selected work, Please, No More Poetry (2013) and Konzeptuelle Arbeiten (2017). His most recent volume of fiction, a, A Novel was published by Paris’s Jean Boîte Editions. Beaulieu has exhibited his visual work across Canada, the United States, and Europe and has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students. Derek Beaulieu holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University and is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
8 pages // pdf
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Joshua Smith: Foreslips (2020)
Foreslips is four minimal concrete poems by Joshua Smith (US). Six pages, z-folded A6 publication. Printed on 250 gsm recycled paper in an edition of 30 hand numbered copies. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2020.
6 pages // English // 30 copies // pdf
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Danni Storm: Intruding Madness (2020)
Intruding Madness is three anagrammatic concrete poems by Danni Storm (DK). A6 leaflet, four pages. Printed on 300 gsm recycled paper. Packed in a PP protective sleeve. Edition of 30 hand numbered copies. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2020.
Second press: 30 copies. December 2020
Third press: 30 copies. July 2021
Fourth press: 30 copies. January 2022
Fifth press: 30 copies. July 2022
4 pages // English // pdf
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Rasmus Halling Nielsen: Johanneskapitlet & Pentagram (2020)
Bog af Rasmus Halling Nielsen. Udgivet som en pdf af Non Plus Ultra, 2020
152 sider // dansk/engelsk // ISBN: 978-87-93828-07-0 // pdf
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Rasmus Halling Nielsen: Færdiggør strækningen som en lykkelig (2020)
Bog af Rasmus Halling Nielsen. Udgivet som en pdf af Non Plus Ultra, 2020
98 sider // dansk/engelsk // ISBN: 978-87-93828-06-3 // pdf
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Ragnhild Christiansen: Sentiments (2020)
Ragnhild Christiansen's second book of asemic writing and abstracts, Sentiments. Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2020.
"In Sentiments the reader encounters powerful bodies of asemic scripture, that exist in a breath and dance of linear lively resuscitation, and dark gestural fascination. In this book one encounters Ragnhild Christiansen’s living hand that tears open raw, with brush and ink, the veil of a glorious creative mind. We are gifted shards of a calligraphic ecosystem dwelling in the mouth of a tiger hang gliding off cliffs of scribal dreaming. In this vision before us are lain deep charcoal tracks on the snowy white page. We are left hunting the action of a crow that has already taken flight after laying down its black bitumen. Natural deep expression rises again to acknowledge scraps of linguistic survival torn open on the pages of an absolutely great book."
—Michael Jacobson, author of Works & Interviews
Ragnhild Christiansen is a Danish artist born 1963. She works with asemic writing, abstracts, collages and more.
18 of the original pieces from the book was exhibited at Sorø Bibliotek, November 2021.
Softcover book // 32 pages // ISBN: 978-87-93828-05-6 // Edition of 50
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Nicolai Emil Gottlieb: Fåk politi (2020)
Fåk Politi (Fåk = Danish drunk punk slang for ”fuck”, politi = police).
Photo and graffiti zine originally published in twenty copies in 2018. Now available digitally as a pdf.
20 pages // Danish/English // pdf
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Danni Storm: Triste digte (2019)
Triste digte er en samling af fyrre visuelle anagramdigte. Udgivet af Non Plus Ultra, 2019. 7 af disse digte var med i udstillingen Ingen fremtid af Danni Storm på Metanoia i København.
Softcover bog // 48 sider // dansk // ISBN: 978-87-93828-02-5 // pdf
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Danni Storm: Sad Face (2019)
Three anagrammatic visual poems. Published as a leaflet by Non Plus Ultra, 2019. These poems was featured in the exhibition Ingen Fremtid (No Future) by Danni Storm at Metanoia in Copenhagen.
4 pages // English // Edition of 25 copies // pdf
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Manuela Zammit: A Short Summer Story (2019)
A Short Summer Story is a typewritten poem by Malta-based artist Manuela Zammit. Following a recent return to her native Mediterranean island, the motif of the sea playfully found its way into her work. Published as a pdf by Non Plus Ultra, 2019.
10 pages // English // pdf
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Ragnhild Christiansen: Tegn (2019)
Tegn (Signs) is a collection of asemic writings by Danish artist Ragnhild Christiansen (b.1963). Published by Non Plus Ultra, 2019.
Softcover book // 38 pages // ISBN: 978-87-93828-01-8 // Edition of 50 copies // pdf
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Danni Storm: Eyes/Øjne (2019)
Bilangual visual poetry publication. Published as a pdf by Non Plus Ultra, 2019.
Bilingual visuel poesi publikation. Udgivet som en pdf af Non Plus Ultra, 2019
18 pages // English/Danish // ISBN: 978-87-93828-00-1 // pdf