Bøger af Sina Najafi

Derived from the Latin "forensis," the word forensics refers to the "forum" and designates the practice of making an argument by using objects before a professional, political or legal gathering. "Cabinet" issue 43, with a special section on "Forensics" edited by Eyal Weizman, features Weizman on the changing role of forensics following the discovery of the body of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele; Lawrence abu-Hamdan on the use by the British police of minute shifts in electrical signatures to precisely date recorded phone conversations; an interview with legendary forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow; and artist projects by Hito Steyerl and Fareed Armaly. Elsewhere in the issue: Rachel Berwick on "zugunruhe," a term coined in the 1950s to describe the phenomenon of nighttime restlessness of birds about to migrate; D. Graham Burnett and Sal Randolph's guide to identifying paper shredder patterns in order to reassemble destroyed documents; an artist project by Amie Siegel; and much more.

Looming large in both geological fact and sociocultural significance, mountains promise grandeur, picturesque natural beauty, good health and the chance to literally rise above the everyday--yet they also menace our imaginations with their harsh conditions, dangerous terrain and deep sense of isolation. These multivalent moods have proved an enticement to sportsmen, scientists, poets and philosophers. Indeed, our modern notion of the "sublime" was born in the Alps--where, as the English critic John Dennis wrote in 1693, nature was revealed as not solely a "delight that is consistent with reason," but also an experience "mingled with Horrours, and sometimes almost with despair." Cabinet 27 features Brian Dillon on the Cold War fact and Faustian fiction of Germany's Brocken; Allen S. Weiss on Petrarch and the winds of Mount Ventoux; and Jeffrey Kastner on the eighteenth-century Alpine panoramas of Hans Conrad Escher von der Linth. It also features Christopher Turner on the "lunar photographs" of James Nasmyth; Viktoria Tkaczyk on scientist Robert Hooke; biologist J.S.B. Haldane on being the right size; artist projects by Casey Logan and Walead Beshty; and Peter Lamborn Wilson's examination of the alchemical properties of building materials.

Roger Andersson's book "Letters from Mayhem is an artist book made of 26 duotone watercolors, each depicting one letter of the alphabet. Printed on thick board in the format of a children's ABC primer, each letter is embedded in a fairytale setting in which wispy long-haired teenagers lie around stoned, sniffing glue, listening to heavy metal, and so on. This garden of vices overgrown with weeds and entangled vines forms a strange foil for imagery drawn from drug culture, anarchy, heavy metal, and children's cartoons, rendering every scene both innocent and corrupt. Full of messages hidden within plants, ponds, and clouds, Andersson's drawings evoke a soft nostalgia for childhood tempered by images of soft-edged romantic decadence.