Articles

Do animals create and enjoy music on a similar level to humans? Or are their magnificent displays of sound merely functional? Tobias Fischer, co-editor of the book Animal Music, lays out the arguments for and against, drawing upon a trove of research and creative works by artists and scientists alike.

David Frazier charts the growth of inter-Asian dialogue and networks in the art world amidst the fissures of globalization and a still-dominant Western paradigm for viewing art.

Nicholas Thoburn's "Anti-Book" is a 'book' that interrogates the book-form. In his critique of this beloved commodity, Thoburn challenges our understanding of books as transcendent moral and aesthetic objects unsullied by commerce. Rather, he says, books are pulsing with capitalist relations. Thoburn proposes instead a "communism of textual matter". White Fungus editor Ron Hanson has been corresponding with Thoburn and, in the first of a series of articles based on this communication, introduces Thoburn's concept of the anti-book and its historical precedents.

Kurt Gottschalk attended a New York performance of Max Richter's SLEEP, in which audience members are invited to stay overnight at a concert, slowing down to share a collective, somatic experience of music. Gottschalk reported on the experience for White Fungus. Speaking to other composers on the topic, and revisiting historic works, he extended his inquiry to consider at length this different process of listening.

Kyra Kordoski revisits the pantheon-building art theory of Clement Greenberg and its connection to modernity through the prism of the matsutake mushroom.

Sam Wallman is an award-winning Melbourne comics artist who utilizes journalism and the expanded canvas of the web to detail the lives of his subjects while delivering a penetrating social message. Drawing on his co-pursuits as a trade unionist and political activist, Wallman explores topics ranging from the history of trade unionism, meth use among gay, bi, and queer men, to the arbitrariness of human detention. Tim Bollinger interviewed Wallman and wrote an overview of his work for White Fungus.