Book Specifications:

110 pages printed on recycled paper

12 cm x 20 cm x 8 mm

Section Sewn

Paperback (Standard Edition) (Release date: 14th July, 2020)

Hardback (Limited Edition) (Release date: 1st December, 2020)

ISBN: 978-0-9957480-6-4

Credits:

Design: Lucy Wilkinson

Editor: Lucy Wilkinson

Artwork: Al Razutis

Sewn and handbound at the press

"YES" "YOU" "CAN" / Al Razutis [PAPERBACK]

£36.60

Born into a ’post-war dystopia’ called ‘post-war Germany of displaced people living in Displaced Person camps’, Al Razutis tells us a story: ‘What culture there had been was destroyed in the rubble’ and the post-war generation would rise and proclaim a new activism.

This collection of writing, "Yes" "You" "Can" was shaped by his avant-gardism and what William Wees called 'agonism', and it reveals how such activity and world-view becomes an art, a social force of protest, and a legacy for next generations.

Al Razutis is an avant-garde filmmaker who has continued his work for fifty years; he is a pioneer in holographic arts and now a critic, archivist and historian for this medium; he is a video artist who took his interactive bio-feedback 'video art' devices on to the broadcast tv stage, and one of the early adopters of motion-picture art in web virtual reality. It is fitting that his films are also in stereoscopic 3D and that he is working on new titles as well as holography.

This selection of writings reflect the broad range of his interests and abilities, written over decades of his migrations in media and reflecting his restless soul which can never be contained by any academic or single artistic discipline. He joins a host of other revolutionary art authors who commented, created, delivered manifestos of the soul.

These works are dedicated to the next generations that somehow will survive the present ones.
THIS IS THE STORY

MANIFESTO, CINEMA ART (MARCH 28, 1980)

AUTOPSY OF THE PATRIARCH

A LESSON HERE FOR IMPOSTORS AND SIMPLETONS

THREE WRITINGS FROM FRAMEWORKS: 'WHAT IS CINEMA NOW?'; 'FORGOT ABOUT IT BEING "ART"'; 'A PILGRIM FROM SPROCKET-LESS CYBERSPACE.

PO-MO COLLAGE: 'CANADA'S MEDIA ART HISTORY AND FALSE CLAIMS': HOW THE PO-MO ERA HAS BECOME CUT AND PASTE META-HISTORY.

PROPOSITIONS FOR THE DECONSTRUCTION OF CINE-STRUCTURALISM: AN ELIPTICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FILMS OF PETER ROSE.

MANIFESTO: IMAGINATION VS MACWORLD
Al Razutis has inspired me in two ways: the first, to
understand the artist as an individual, involved in the plurality of views and opinions. The individual as someone who is both original to themself, but also part of a greater spectrum. The individual as someone who is both original to themself, yet not fixated on fashion or style as to be part of a “movement”. The artist as someone who does not follow, but is searching for the authenticity within himself and within his environment. This leads to the second way Al has inspired me, and that is, to not compromise yourself, not only as an artist, but as a human being. This artist, this individual, is truly terrifying to the institution. Al’s work and outlook helped me through the frustrations I suffered at film school. The predominance on Hollywood and mainstream cinema troubled me, mainly because we were discussing already over-discussed films, but also because we were learning about the cinema that had created patriarch rather than transformed it. We were learning about a cinema that had created archetypes and stereotypes for financial gain. We were learning about a cinema that had been part of a harmful system. Al Razutis was my first way in to the other side of cinema. A cinema, a way of thinking, that was about freedom. Not stereotype or archteype. A cinema, a way of thinking, that was about feelings, textures, criticism, reflection, perception. It was the avant-garde.
Al Razutis has an informative and interactive website found here, where you can browse so many projects, films and writings.

Gravity wins, Entropy rules: Catherine MacTavish, Al Razutis, Sidney Gordon. Edited & Designed by Felix Rapp. This DIY publication is an accessory to the exhibition by the same name of Al Razutis’ holographic assemblages curated by Felix Rapp at UNIT/PITT from March 2-April 30, 2024. In Curator and Editor Felix Rapp’s introduction, he opens the conversation around the contemporary status of holography within the art world and society at large, alongside a candid description of his experience first meeting Al at his home on Saturna Island and being shown his collection of holographic works stored in this unlikely location. An essay titled “What is a Hologram?” by Catharine MacTavish, describes her time experimenting within the Visual Alchemy holographic studio formerly located under the Granville Street Bridge in Vancouver, and explores how holograms can confront us with the illusory and imaginal nature of existence. A titular essay by Al Razutis—in his signature writing style—discussing the roles of light, electromagnetic radiation, and fields of energy within holography, alongside storied historical accounts of several individual artworks. Finally, “Looking Through a Two-Way Lens: A reflection on ‘Vancouver’s’ lively underground cine-culture, 1960-present” written by Sidney Gordon (co-founder of local film screening collective XINEMA) discusses the success of Razutis’ experimental films and “no-barrier screenings” in the late 1960’s-70’s in Vancouver. You can view images from the exhibition and film screening presented by XINEMA and UNIT/PITT here.

Information on the distribution of some of Al Razutis' films here at Lightcone (Paris, France)

'Al Razutis: Three Decades of Rage': An Interview with Al Razutis in Inside the Pleasure Dome: Fringe Film in Canada by Mike Hoolbroom (2011)

Al Razutis, 'The Politics of Structuralism: Kirk Tougas and Tom Braidwood', in Al razutis annd Tony Reif, section on 'Critical Perspectives on Vancouver Avant-Garde Cinema 1970-83', Centre for Canadian Contemporary Art, Vancouver: art and artists 1931-1983 (Vancouver, BC, 1983)

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