Still from Happy Birthday , Ed Atkins. 2014. Courtesy the artist.

Artist Books / Artist’s Novels is an ongoing inquiry by Stephanie La Cava that looks at the intersection between visual art and literature. Each entry is a conversation with an artist or writer whose books defy genre expectations and exist outside of the traditional form.

Volume 1: Seth Price
Volume 2: Paul Chan
Volume 3: Alissa Bennett
Volume 4: Ed Atkins
Volume 5: Ed Ruscha

Stephanie LaCava in Conversation with Ed Atkins

At the end of the summer, FitzcarraldoEditions released the thick blue A Primer for Cadavers, a selection of British artist Ed Atkins’ writings from 2010 to 2016. While the Berlin-based writer is best known for his videos of computer generated figures spliced to vivid sound cuts, he is very much preoccupied with words.

Atkins sometimes provides texts to accompany his exhibitions. Many of these are included in the book, like “A Tumor (in English)”, once distributed alongside his 2011 Tate Britain show of the same name. Both writing and video often reference the abject or unseen body: a poetic meditation on tumors, for instance, or a CGI severed head bouncing down the stairs. It is perhaps best to let Atkins explain his writing, which seems eerily prophetic in relation to political events of late.

Take the following, from Hammering the Bars, as an example:

X: A Concern Troll.

Stage one is

X phantom limning in whichever web forums.

The masked troll seemingly devoted to the forum’s consensus: a proper apologist, as immoderate as the damnable moderator.

Stage two involves

X’s attempts to sway the group’s action or opinions—

all the while opining on their specific goals—only with professed concerns.

—Stephanie LaCava

STEPHANIE LACAVA: Can you speak to the recent world events and how you see them playing into your practice and point of view? In past conversations, you’ve mentioned The Invisibles, a comic book series with a drug that turns a word into the actual thing it represents, and you said how this is mirrored in the gaming of electronic profiles for impressions that lead to actual events or outcomes.

ED ATKINS: This is vast, right? I mean, to even scrape the surface feels like it requires a heft I’m not sure I can properly muster here… I’ll try a few thoughts. Firstly, there’s the thing I rehearse pretty much constantly in my videos and writing, namely poles of literality and figuration and how they are confused to political or ideological ends—and conversely how they might be used productively. Responsibly, even. So in a lot of...