EDITION 001
For the Edition 001 Against boredom: delirious is beautiful XEROXED collaborated with the Primo Moroni Archive in Milan, one of Italy’s largest archives of underground press. Conceived as a viral process, the edition activates the circulation and mutation of selected archival material, generating new editorial content that reinterprets the archive.
In 2024, XEROXED delved into the Primo Moroni Archive with the support of the archive’s volunteers and extracting and selecting materials that were reinterpreted and reworked by eleven contributors. The overarching theme that unifies the material is Against boredom: delirious is beautiful.
This title mirrors the spirit of the selected archival materials, which span the years 1971 to 1977, an incredible fertile period for Italian counterculture. The materials were extracted from publications such as Puzz, Cannibale, and Oask, which addressed urgent political issues through multiple media. Comics, illustrations, poetry, and experimental writing filled the mimeographed pages with a playful, irreverent, and visually vibrant attitude.
The common thread that runs through the selected publications is the idea that divergent strategies of thought like irony and cheekiness can be tools of destructive creation and transformative power. These approaches challenged dominant cultural narratives and proposed alternative ways of being together, contributing to the emergence of what was then imagined as a New Culture.
In XEROXED Edition 001 the archive is not approached as a fortress of memory, but as a creative space, and as a pool for creation and reflection. For XEROXED, the archive reveals its full potential when it becomes a site for cultivating new perspectives, questioning historical narratives, and activating contemporary forms of knowledge. In this new understanding of the archive, instead of being left intact and untouched, the material becomes an input for the creation of contemporary perspectives on it.
The eleven contributors engage with the archive through diverse languages, approaches, and media. Their contributions span poetry, free translation, sound design, illustration, and comics, offering multiple reinterpretations of the original material and expanding their resonance in the contemporary.
These contents were published in the form of a wearable publication, the tangible result of this process of mutation. The wearable publication serves as a platform where the editorial contributions are gathered and juxtaposed; a space where like-minded individuals come together and share their contemporary interpretation of the archival material.
The reason why XEROXED makes use of the wearable publication as its primary publishing medium in order to reach a wider and heterogeneous audience. Wearable publications are mostly meant to be worn and shown in public spaces, which creates a shared experience of the content, where the garment becomes a conversation starter, a way to connect and engage with others. By wearing a wearable publication, the wearer is not only consuming the published content but also contributing to its dissemination and interpretation. In this sense, a wearable publication operates as a social practice : a shared experience thriving on the constant engagement and co-production of meaning between the wearer and the readers.
Edition 001 Contributors
Alice Alloggio
Dennis Muñoz Espadiña
Irmak Ertaş
Lenn Cox
Alcatraz
CTR_HT
Michelangelo Magnini
Ruben Kotkamp
Sem Larisa Jannik Bartel
Sofia Avaltroni
The Primo Moroni Archive has never accessed any form of external financing, as it is not ideologically and financially tied to any public or private Institution. The archive bases its existence on the voluntary and supportive contribution of those who take care of it, alternating, according to the moments and needs, the free work and the self-financing initiative. That, of course, has a big impact on the archive management, but it denotes a type of commitment that goes beyond money, it is motivated by passion, love, and a personal drive toward certain, openly radical ideologies.
The XEROXED Edition 001 was born out of the urgency of enhancing and re-activating the Primo Moroni archival materials, and giving value to the immaterial work that keeps the archive alive and proliferating.
For this reason, the XEROXED Edition 001 also functioned as a tool to raise funds to help the archive continue growing and spreading counter-hegemonic knowledge. The money raised from the distribution of this edition were used to cover the costs of production materials, and the remaining proceeds will be donated entirely to the Primo Moroni Archive.
XEROXED strongly believes that is our collective responsibility to protect such spaces, as they store precious bits of Italian culture.
Gandalf il viola - di versi. Senza data di pubblicazione, circa meta' del 1977. Roma: Libreria arzak.
PUZZ. Provocazione. Guerra Interna. (1976, Giugno). Numero 21.
Cannibale. (1977), Numero 3.
Cannibale, (1977), Numero 2, p.7, ill. /img. “Perché Pippo sembra uno sballato?”, Andrea Pazienza.
Oask, (1977), numero unico.
Cox 18/Conchetta CSOA, posters, flyers. Data sconosciuta. Milano.
Fumetti critici. Invito ad una provocazione. (Settembre 1975), flyer.
Poesia Metropolitana. Marciapiede. (1976, Febbraio), Numero unico.
PUZZclubdellemammedifamiglia. Mille puzzole ubriache. (1973, Aprile).
(UN)PUBLISHED!
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EXPANDED EDITION 00
