Solutions 11-167

The Book of Scotlands

Momus

In the spirit of Italo Calvino, Bruno Schulz, and French animation series Les Shadoks (using any language, that is, except the “wooden tongue” of official discourse), The Book of Scotlands will outline, in a numerical sequence, one hundred and fifty-six Scotlands which currently do not exist anywhere. At a time when functional independence seems to be a real possibility for Scotland—and yet no one is quite sure what that means – a delirium of visions, realistic and absurd, is necessary.

Published in the Solution series edited by Ingo Niermann, The Book of Scotlands will provide one answer—and a few more—to this appeal for focused dreaming about potential parallel world Scotlands. The author, Momus, is a Scottish artist who has lived in Paris, New York, Tokyo and now Berlin. Paradoxically, of course, there is nothing more Scottish than leaving Scotland. And the further a Scot travels from Scotland, the more vivid and lurid his “inner Scotlands” become—and the more tellingly they differ from the real place. 2009 will also see the publication of Momus’ first novel, The Book of Jokes.

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Solution 168-185

America

Tirdad Zolghadr

Solution 168–185: America is the fourth book in the Solution series. Opting for the United States of America, “still the most proficiently colonial place I know,” Zolghadr provides a compilation of highly entertaining “solutions,” where the objective is not the education of America so much as the pleasure of a text that purports to be just that. Tirdad Zolghadr is a writer/curator based in Berlin. He is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine. He organized the United Arab Emirates pavilion, Venice Biennale 2009, and the long-term project Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie (with Nav Haq). Zolghadr teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

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