Chance: The Catalogue

Santa Monica, CA: Smart Art Press, 1996. First printing. (48) pp., 7 x 10 inches. Perfect-bound in printed card covers. Designed by Mark Stritzel. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout. Corners bumped, and a small scar from label removal on back cover, otherwise very good.



The catalogue of a three-day event in the Mojave desert, conceived and produced by Chris Kraus and described by her as a ”philosophical rave and summit meeting between artists and philosophers, chaosophists and croupiers, mathematicians and musicians,” presented by ArtCenter College of Design and the French Cultural Service, which took place at a resort casino forty miles south of Las Vegas. Participants included Jean Baudrillard, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky, Nick Kallos, Marcella Greening, Sheppard Powell, Homer Erotic, Towel, Sylvere Lotringer, Oguri with Roxanne Steinberg and Renzoku, Rosanne Allucquere Stone, Shirley Tse, Douglas Hepworth, Diane di Prima, Ann Rower, The Chance Band, Ohm-A-Revelator, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Calvin Meyers, Mike Kelley, and others.

A collage of images and short texts, the catalogue contains essays, poems, excerpts from stories, and interviews by the editors and Liz Larner, Ann Rower, Diane di Prima, Paul D. Miller, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Brian Moss, Shirley Tse, Dave Bailey, Lisa Kirk, Fred Dewey, Ellen Maybe, Rosanne Allucquere Stone, Jean Baudrillard, and Nick Kallos.