Nowt 04 – Benign artistic trespass as method, and Production

Nowt 04 is from Lawrence Upton. It is a collection of two papers on methods and production in arts practice. Upton’s writing doesn’t try to hide behind vague over-used academic styles and clichés – precisely because it doesn’t need to – there’s something there, at the same time as it engages with prism-like philosophical concepts in a way which is a) often coffee-sputteringly funny and therefore keeps the reader completely engaged, and takes them out of their neutral gear, and b) is clearly informed by a long and in-depth engagement with form and doing.

Nowt 03 – Steve and David talk about The Fall

Nowt 03, Steve and David talk about The Fall is self-explanatory, and it is also the next no-frills A4 printer number. We are now inviting artists and writers to either contribute material for further editions or we are interrogating them before publishing the results.

Nowt 02 – Dock

Nowt 02 is a collaboration between Guy Begbie and Steve Hanson, a riff on the title, essentially, played call-and-response fashion. Dock isn’t a photocopy-and-go number, we hope to have a physical edition ready at some point soon, although there’s nothing to stop you from engaging with it online or printing your own copy either.

Nowt 01 – Towards a new Ancién Regime?

We will be putting publications out in batches, which means they may change over time, slightly or radically, there are no definitive versions, this is an ongoing practice. Nowt 01 has been uploaded before it has been responded to by one or more other authors, which means that this edition may change significantly. Look for the batch number on the cover to find out how many stages it has been through. You can get Nowt 01 (batch a) here. Download and print the whole document out on A4 paper, staple it in the corner where the grey staple mark is, and then fold it into its more portable A5 size, along the grey line. Read it, give it away, or leave it on the bus or train.

Nowt 00 – Nothing To See Here

The blank page, the year zero of the current Nowt Press incarnation, is the stalled book Nothing To See Here, which was meant to document a fringe performance by Lee Hassall and others at the Ways of Looking festival, Bradford, 2011. The stalling was mainly financial, and as the document was largely completed, including Hassall’s wonderful notes on practice, we present it here to inaugurate Nowt’s no-frills re-launch. Here also is a poster for a lecture on cities, art and gentrification, at Bradford School of Art and Media, which featured a serendipitous moment from the performance. The two zeroes indicate another year dot moment and Hassall’s entranced eyes, staring through the fence at the giant hole in the centre of Bradford… This is Nowt 00…

Nowt Press re-launched

Nowt Press is returning with a series of no-frills, A4 pdfs, printable on any desktop, which can be folded, stapled and distributed at your end. We are taking our cue from Proboscis, with their wonderful, downloadable, folding books. But we have never been able to really make them work, and so are making our constructions as simple as possible: this is about the dissemination of provocative writing, ideas and images, more than it is about books.

The pre-history of Nowt Press

Nowt Press was founded in 2004 when Steve Hanson and Robert Galeta published New and Accurate Maps of the World, volume 1, in an edition of 200. This was followed by Hanson’s Beyond Retro and a scattering of pamphlets. Some spreads from New and Accurate Maps of the World volume 1 can be found here. Nowt Press then typeset Ken Sparnes’ Collected Poems, in collaboration with Girl in the Chemist and Hibrida of Bradford. The Collated Total was then issued, along with a hand-made improvisational edition from Guy Begbie. The last book issued in the ‘pre-historic’ phase was Steve Hanson’s Contango Tango. 

We gathered some press, mainly through the UWE Book Arts newsletter. Here are the relevant pages from Issue 27, Issue 33 and Issue 49. In 2009, Nowt Press were involved in a Multiples symposium at Hereford College of Arts with Dr. Stephen Bury of The British Library (he is now the Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian at the Frick Art Reference Library).