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Behind the Scenes gives you an inside look at today's design industry and the challenges it faces, the commercial undercurrents that shape and define it and a glimpse of those in power. The book includes subjects such as design media and PR and the relationship between the two, payment methods in the design industry, the escalating speed of the new and the effect it has on the products, as well as the importance of pricing. Behind the Scenes is a book debating the issues around design that rarely is spoken about.

Norway Calling, the book of contemporary Norwegian design, is a kind of answer to the question of why Norwegian design is arousing such pleasure and curiosity today the world over. It is the first book to mirror the exciting northern trend, introducing some of the principal figures and some of their most important projects - an excellent opportunity for design-lovers to acquaint themselves with the vigorous development of Norwegian design after such titans as Sverre Fehn, Grete Prytz Kittelsen and Arne Korsmo. After years of silence there proved to be a new, living world of Norwegian design. Now widley known designers and architects such as Snøhetta, Daniel Rybakken, Norway Says and Arne & Carlos bare witness to this forceful trend.

The growing flow of digital culture depends on the hidden protocols of its underlying systems. To explore how interfacing shapes spectatorship online, this pioneering study pinpoints experiences of flow through the friction of photo-based glitch art by Phillip Stearns, Rosa Menkman, and Evan Meaney. Homing in on the viewer, these three cross-disciplinary case studies present and analyze material that is new to the art-historical context. In particular, they focus on how glitched artworks in online environments make viewers aware of their own activity within the flow, causing a break from the increasingly naturalized integration of system and individual. When a glitch invites the viewer to try out different positions in relation to the system, a tactical spectatorship unfolds.

Lotta Antonsson's work recalls her fascination with the late 1960s and 70s, in a style where documentary and fiction blur in a merging of social and sexual revolutions. From a process that utilizes techniques of collage and montage there emerges a personal way of looking at the ephemeral nature of things, whether printed matter such as magazines and books, or natural objects such as shells, minerals and driftwood. Antonsson's analogue cuts and repetitions seize upon the allegorical potential of image fragments, liberating fashion and erotic photography to become explorations of the gendered aspect of their histories. Antonsson belongs to the generation of Swedish artists who emerged in the early 1990s, whose work was inspired by postmodernist art and theory (including a questioning of the male gaze as well as the construction of the woman as an object) and often use humour, irony and self-distance as part of their method.

MADE IN MIND Myths and Realities of the Contemporary Artist Editor MARTA GNYP Genius, bohemian, social rebel, moral provocateur, charismatic visionary... The artist has always been surrounded by enchanting myths. Today, in a globalized world, images and information are easily visible and accessible, which in part has undermined and transformed the existing notions of the artist and the public. This new relationship between the artist and the art market is especially interesting and complex as it oscillates between celebration and indifference, affirmation and refusal of the market and its opportunities. Briefly but inspiringly, Marta Gnyp analyses the fascinating phenomena that has influenced and shaped the context in which contemporary artists produce their artworks and present them to the public and collectors. In exclusive and personal interviews several important, international contemporary artists reflect on the idea of being an artist today, talking about their private motivations and ambitions, about art in general and their art in particular, and about their experiences of the ungraspable transformations that are shaping the world today. Participating artists: Ai Weiwei, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Matthew Day Jackson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Valérie Favre, Urs Fischer, Subodh Gupta, Terence Koh, Michael Kunze, Gabriel Lester, Eoin McHugh, Boris Mikhailov, Matthew Monahan, Robin Rhode, Andrei Roiter, Willem de Rooij, Stefan Ruitenbeek, Thomas Schütte, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Ulay, Artur Zmijewski and the scientist Robbert Dijkgraaf Marta Gnyp is a Dutch art historian at the University of Amsterdam with an international business background. She is also a collector of contemporary art, art advisor, and contributing art editor for several international magazines.

Today we are all photographers. Self-portraits are everywhere and snapshots of our lives are circulated and shared frenetically on various social media networks. Distinctions are blurred, not only between the private and public spheres but also between professional and amateur photographic practices. This calls for increased knowledge about the performative characteristics of digitized and networked visual communication. What are the limits of automation and what is the potential of virtuality? When is visuality empowering and when is self-monitoring out of control? Auto investigates how the everyday digital photography of our times challenges notions of autobiography, interactivity, and democracy.

Qualis artifex pereo ? translated What an artist the world loses in me, was the dying words of the infamous Roman emperor Nero. The phrase here marks what Bo I Cavefors and Martin Bladh through their performance-series The Theatre of the Decadence of Cruelty for several years have manifested: the close proximity between staged debauchery and oppressive violence transformed through artistic self-exploration; how humiliation can be handled when converted into enjoyment, sexual absolutism and a strict acceptation of its most profound consequences: sperm, blood and the crack of the whip; and in the end, the question: what is sensation in itself? One answer that is presented in this work is that sensation is a violent physical overload, an attack on the nervous system best handled completely naked, when one is bleeding and disappearing into sexual ecstasy. STYX förlag presents QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO - a book and a DVD. The book includes: ? a manifesto ? essays by the artists ? in-depth interviews: Cavefors on Cavefors by Johannes Flink Bladh on Bladh by Peter Sotos discussing the nature of their art and their drives ? 9 color collages by M.Bladh ? a poem by M.Bladh intersected by a text amalgam based on works of Georges Bataille ? original action scores for the performance pieces ? the work INJURY The DVD includes two performance pieces: QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO (40 min) performed and filmed in Malmö, 8th of June 2008. Actors: Bo I. Cavefors, Martin Bladh, Erica Li Lundqvist, Johanna Rosenqvist. Film: Aryan Kaganof. African Noise Foundation in association with Grymhetens Teater Dekadens Music: Martin Bladh Sound engineer: Mikael Oretoft QUALIS ARTIFEX PEREO ? FINIS (27 min) performed and filmed in Norrköping, 12th of June 2009. Actors: Bo I. Cavefors, Martin Bladh, Johan Adolphi, Mikael Oretoft. Film: Peter Andersson, Lars Bosma Music: Martin Bladh plus the extra feature INSULT - a video work by Martin Bladh (15 min)