CARPET BOMBING CULTURE
We are like the orchestra on the Titanic, you and us. We make books. You sell them. In the distance people are shouting something about an iceberg. So what? “Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.” Tyler Durden We make books. There, I said it. We believe there is a future for books and bookshops. Like most people who love browsing bookshops, we are Romantics. We believe in the bookshop experience. In fact... We are more excited about publishing now than ever before. And we want to share that excitement with you. We want to paint you a picture of how you can use our books to help keep the dream alive. There is digital AND there is analogue. Not, digital INSTEAD OF analogue. The future belongs to those who realise that the value of digital technology is only as good as it’s inputs and outputs. Innovative relationships between the real world and cyberspace will be the stars of the future. With your help, we aim to be one. We are a publishing company spawned of the digital age. What we do with books can only be done because of the internet. We respond to trends rapidly using social media to gather content. This allows us to put out big beautiful books really fast that capture the Zeitgeist in full technicolour glory. Why should you stock CBC books? CBC Books are books about social objects. “The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else.” - Hugh MacLeod CBC takes a social object, for example: ‘Street Art’ and gives it a big, beautiful book. That book becomes another way for members of that social network to involve themselves more deeply and that has huge social rewards. That’s why people buy our books, in much the same way people used to buy band t-shirts. CBC books are designed to enrich the conversation around their subject with powerful images and
R EPOR TS OF
THE DEATH OF THE BOOK A RE GREATLY EXAGGER ATE D
provocative but conversational text. In this way you can effectively market the books as a way in to a culture, an access code to a social network. In a nutshell, these are books of the internet age for the internet age. Inshallah, this should result in more people picking up books in your shop and taking them to the cashier. And although the Titanic may sink, perhaps we’ll find a new way to ride the wave...
T H E T R U T H T H E W H O L E T R U T H AND EVERYTHING B U T T H E T R U T H No single living artist has created as many myths, rumours and legends as
as myths. Some are laugh out loud bollocks and are simply gossip. You be the
Banksy. In his hometown of Bristol almost everyone seems to have a Banksy
judge. For me these stories illustrate the incredible audacity, originality and
story. Many of these stories are from Bristol, some are from further a field.
sheer bloody mindedness of Banksy. Obviously he should be best known for
What they share is that they are all told with that wide eyed wonder which
his art and exposing the many hypocrisies of modern life. The myths will be
Banksy inspires. The stories were collected from people in Bristol between
viewed as a distraction to some or part of the appeal for others. One thing is
2009 and 2011. Some are quite old and have been told so many times they have
certain, the art and the myths are both larger than life and stick two fingers up
become the stuff of legend, others are more questionable and best described
at conformity. This book is a celebration of that anarchic, rebellious spirit.
Banksy: Myths & Legends Mark Leverton
RRP: ÂŁ5.95
ISBN: 1908211016
148 x 105mm
96 pages
THEY USED TO SAY THAT ‘THE CAMERA NEVER LIES’ The next generation may find that difficult to believe. Photography has come full circle, from the 19th century obsession with realism, to the 21st century addiction to hyper-reality. The opportunities for the artist have multiplied just as the problems have proliferated. As ever, theory runs to catch up with practice. The images collected here strain the old definitions and call for new ones. What are they? Well, they are not, strictly speaking, photographs anymore.
FOR NEW TERRITORY WE NEED NEW MAPS Altered Images RomanyWG
RRP: £24.95
ISBN: 1908211008
260 x 260mm
192 pages
KIND OF LIKE BANKSY WITH A SKETCHBOOK AND SOME SHARPIES The world would be a better place if everyone continued to draw past their teens. But we’re told from an early age that art, especially drawing, won’t pay bills. You need to do something with your life, become a doctor, or a mechanic, or a...Teacher? If you really want to draw for a living, that’s called illustration. And you’ll need to go to college, and uni, start from the bottom and work your way up...Drawing is for kids! Quoteskine is drawing for grown ups. Call it anti-illustration if you want. It celebrates the love of drawing and the subject matter that inspires each image. Taking in references from movies, books, music, famous figures and even including some self penned quotes. Quoteskine hopes to reconnect that childhood love of drawing and creativity with the adult brain. Forget a minute about the work you have to do and the bills you have to pay. Get lost instead in the grown up kid’s world that is Quoteskine.
Quoteskine Lee Crutchley
RRP: £9.95
ISBN: 0955912199
210 x 130mm
144 pages
Icing for Men
UNVENTIONS ARE BOLD, EXCITING, THOUGHT PROVOKING AND STARTLINGLY ORIGINAL. J A ME S M ULLINGER GQ M AGAZINE
Self Replacing Biscuits
Sandwich Mark
Unventions Cléon Daniel
RRP: £9.95
Bullshit Deflectors
ISBN: 1908211032
210 x 210mm
Space Container
108 pages
IT’S NOT SO MUCH TO ME ABOUT COOLNESS FACTOR AS IT IS ABOUT FEELING
Not that ‘zen’ feeling either. Whoever first coined that shit is retarded. It more about the feeling of sheer terror that rushes through you when you’re hauling ass at a yellow light that’s just turned red. That or rolling down a really steep hill and keeping it under control. It’s more of a ‘holy shit I made it without dying’ thing... Alan Sikiric, NYC
42x12 Patrick Potter
RRP: £17.95
ISBN: 978-0955912139
232 x 220mm
192 pages
N O T A L L A R T C R A V E S A T T E N T I O N Some of it hides in the secret places. Some of it
A diverse range of artists find themselves
Urban ruins are like the woods in the old fairy
is buried treasure, out in the urban wilderness,
attracted to these twilight zones and in recent
tales, they are the place where the ordered reality
left scattered in empty rooms of derelict buildings
years something of a movement has come to
of modern city life gives way to the irrational, the
like strange markings left by an unknown
light, huddled around the idea of urban decay and
ambient and the surreal. So next time you think
tribe. These works are gifts given only to the
abandonment as the ultimate canvas. This burning
about scouting for art, why not look a little off the
occasional explorer, found in abandoned factories,
curiosity to see what is behind the fence exists to
beaten track? Visibility is good for certain projects
warehouses and industrial sites. This is art you
a greater or lesser degree in most people, but for
but the delightful, terrible intimacy afforded by
have to earn by leaving the designated areas and
some it is irresistible.
art found in the urban woods is just begging to be
heading out past the No Entry signs of the urban
explored.
environment.
Out of Sight RomanyWG
RRP: ÂŁ19.95
ISBN: 0955912172
260 x 260mm
192 pages
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST FASCINATING TIME WE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE HOPED TO BE ALIVE. SO WHATEVER YOU DO DON’T BE BORED. Several students from an inner city primary school were arrested yesterday in connection with a series of vandalism cases. The local community was shocked to discover that a gang of five and six year olds were being held for questioning. Local police stood by the arrests and highlighted the strong evidence against the youths. The graffiti in question consisted largely of pictures of a house with mummy and daddy and a dog outside of it and a large sun depicted with rays coming from it. Materials used were water based glue, dried pasta, glitter and some pipe cleaners. Police suspect that a stylised image of the sun with a smiley face may well be the gang insignia. The investigation continues.
Untitled I Gary Shove
RRP: ÂŁ14.95
ISBN: 0955912105
234 x 221mm
196 pages
S TA R T A R E L I G I O N ! The rules: If the right person stumbles across the right image at the right time, religion can happen. Think carefully, choose a secret location and paint your chosen or invented religious idol. Do it in such a way that it will appear to have appeared by magic. Make sure it is discovered by a lost shepherd boy during a storm and perhaps rig it up so it weeps honey or secretes magic cheese. If you can prove that more than a thousand people are worshipping your street art then we will give you a crown, and then stone you to death and then worship you.
Untitled II Gary Shove
RRP: ÂŁ14.95
ISBN: 0955912121
286 x 246mm
192 pages
OUT PAINTING WITH MY CREW ON SUPERMARKET ROOFTOP
MU M
P H ON ES
IT ’S TE A T I M E
Untitled III Gary Shove
RRP: £16.95
ISBN: 0955912156
235 x 230mm
192 pages
T A K E O N L Y P I C T U R E S L E A V E O N L Y F O O T P R I N T S It’s easy to describe what Urban Explorers do;
challenging environments that the Urban Explorer
border from childhood into adolescence we cross
they infiltrate abandoned buildings and industrial
shoots. As a result the online scene has been
real physical borders too. It’s the moment in our
sites and explore them, often taking photographs
flooded with beautiful imagery as Explorers trade
lives when we test the boundaries. We finally pluck
along the way. They don’t steal, vandalise or even
shots, stories and advice through message boards
up the courage to break into the haunted house and
leave graffiti behind them. In fact their code of
such as Flickr. However, Urban Explorers are not
take a look around. You can probably remember
honour is reminiscent of the rambler’s way: ‘Take
only photographers. The photography appears to
your own experiences of this. And there will be at
only pictures, leave only footprints’. It is, on the
be the symptom and not the disease.
least one.
other hand, not so easy to describe the whys and
Why then do these individuals choose, on a day
The Urban Explorer feels that we, in the
wherefores.
off work, not to have a stroll round the shops
comfortable and over-protected ‘first world’,
It’s likely that this activity has existed in one form
and take in a movie but rather to break the law
are living in an enforced and extended state of
or another for as long as we have been building
and jeopardise their own safety purely to spelunk
childhood. They have remembered that they are
things, but recently ‘Urbex’, as it is known, is
around filthy environments with no promise of
capable of having unmediated experiences of
becoming a more unified scene due to the activities
material reward? The lure is obviously very strong
reality and they welcome the fear that may (or may
of online ‘Urbex’ communities such as ‘Forbidden
and to understand the siren song of these places
not) come with those experiences. The fear itself
Places’ or ‘TalkUrbex’. Strange then that an activity
requires a certainly more poetic mindset than one
is the gateway to go through. It’s the gateway that
that is certainly not social in a conventional sense
might be used to occupying.
leads for many to ‘wonderland’. This is the world
(explorers often work alone or in pairs) is becoming
Think back to your childhood for a moment and
through the looking glass that in some dark corner
a society of sorts.
it all begins to make sense. Do you remember the
of every soul, we are all looking for.
With tools consisting of a digital SLR camera and
terrifying yet seductive draw of the archetypal
The strange thing then is not that Urban Explorers
High Dynamic Range software it has become very
haunted house? Every neighbourhood and every
exist; it’s that the rest of us have forgotten that we
much easier to take awesome photographs in the
childhood has one. At the very point we cross the
are Urban Explorers too.
Beauty in Decay RomanyWG
RRP: £19.95
ISBN: 0955912148
260 x 260mm
192 pages
I´VE BEEN INFLUENCED BY PEOPLE WHO L O V E W H AT T H E Y D O . I T H I N K PA S S I O N I S V E R Y I M P O R TA N T I N A N Y T H I N G Y O U D O Isaac Cordal has been creating his cement figures since 20001 and placing
we can all empathise with their situations, their leisure time, their waiting for
these interventions on the streets of London since 2007.
buses and even their more tragic moments such as accidental death, suicide or family funerals. His sculptures can be found in gutters, on top of buildings, on
His sculptures take the form of little people sculpted from concrete in ‘real’
top of bus shelters - in many unusual and unlikely places in the capital. These
situations. Cordal manages to capture a lot of emotion in his vignettes, in spite
concrete sculptures are like little magical gifts to the public that only a few
of their lack of detail or colour. He’s sympathetic toward his little people and
lucky people will see and love but so many more will have missed.
Cement Eclipses Isaac Cordal
RRP: £12.95
ISBN: 0955912180
214 x 146mm
256 pages
Banksy: Myths & Legends ISBN: 1908211016
Quoteskine
Mark Leverton 148 x 105mm
Lee Crutchley
ISBN: 0955912199
RRP: £5.95 96 pages
RRP: £9.95
260 x 260mm
144 pages
Altered Images
RomanyWG
ISBN: 1908211008
Unventions
Cléon Daniel
ISBN: 1908211032
42x12 Patrick Potter RRP: £17.95
Out of Sight
ISBN: 978-0955912139 232 x 220mm 192 pages
ISBN: 0955912172
RRP: £24.95
260 x 260mm
RRP: £9.95
210 x 210mm
RomanyWG
192 pages
108 pages
RRP: £19.95
260 x 260mm
192 pages
Untitled I
Gary Shove
ISBN: 0955912105
Untitled III
Gary Shove
ISBN: 0955912156
RRP: £14.95
234 x 221mm
196 pages
RRP: £16.95
235 x 230mm
192 pages
Untitled II
Gary Shove
ISBN: 0955912121
Beauty in Decay
RRP: £14.95
286 x 246mm
RomanyWG
ISBN: 0955912148
192 pages
RRP: £19.95
260 x 260mm
192 pages
Cement Eclipses Isaac Cordal RRP: £12.95 ISBN: 0955912180
UK DISTRIBUTION Central Books Ltd t: 44 (0)845 458 9911 e: orders@centralbooks.com
214 x 146mm
256 pages
WORDWIDE DISTRIBUTION CarpetBombingCulture t: 44 (0)1325 488 910 e: books@carpetbombingculture.co.uk
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