Phosphor

A surrealist luminescence

Phosphor was launched in 2008, as a substantial, high-quality journal, which has the aim of presenting contemporary creative and critical work by Leeds Surrealist Group and their friends, with essays, poetry, critique, graphic art, photography, reviews, games, enquiries... Although drawing upon Surrealism's current manifestations, both locally and internationally, Phosphor also highlights sometimes neglected aspects of its history. Each issue has a broad theme, though is not constrained by it. Phosphor followed on from the group's Manticore/Surrealist Communication, a four-page A3 publication, which ran for eight numbers between 1997 and 2006.

 

Phosphor 5

Phosphor No.5 - Language & Liberty

'Through play, words can escape the mechanisms that would enslave them in the relentless commercialization of everyday life. Words at liberty can expand our analogical thinking and give us the power to imagine, to desire, to dream, to refute. This revolt of language is poetry, in its truest sense, which confronts us with the question of how to live, how to be in the world, as well as the urgency of its re-enchantment.'
- from the editorial, Lost For Words, by Kenneth Cox

80 pages - B5 format - Spring 2019 - ISSN 1755-0009

Texts, poems, images on the theme of 'Language & Liberty' - including:

  • Joël Gayraud, The Precarity Of Poetry - on poetry and the possibilities of enchantment
  • Kenneth Cox, Technocratic Oaths - on the debasement of language
  • Mike Peters - selections from Anathemas - aphoristic reflections on language from an unpublished collection
  • Michael Richardson, Acción Poética - on the wall-painting of poetic slogans in South America
  • Claude-Lucien Cauët, Words And Magic - on the magical, language and literature
  • Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Speako - on slips of the tongue
  • Sarah Metcalf, Languid Flames: Playing With Words - an extensive account of various language games played by Leeds Surrealist Group
  • Guy Girard, The World Is Mysterious Because There Are Many Torrents - an account of a language game played by the Paris Surrealist Group
  • Bill Howe, Jindřich Heisler: Igniting A Crystal Chandelier - reflections on the Czech surrealist Jindřich Heisler and 'word-image' games
  • poems by Andy Boobier, Kenneth Cox, Mike Peters, Kateřina Piňosová
  • images by Stephen J. Clark, Jan Drabble, Guy Girard, Rik Lina, Niklas Nenzén, Juan Carlos Otaño, Peter Overton, Mike Peters, Kateřina Piňosová
  • reviews by Andy Boobier, Gareth Brown, Kenneth Cox, Bill Howe, Michael Richardson

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Phosphor 4

Phosphor No.4 - The Oneiric City

'We can read the language of the city streets as a dream narrative, to subject it to a form of dream-analysis even, in an attempt to better understand ourselves. But the streets change, as cities are reshaped and our oneiric sites are demolished, so the narratives themselves become like dreams, as if they had only happened while we were asleep and are remembered upon waking.'
- from the editorial, Port of Prague, by Kenneth Cox & Bill Howe

72 pages - B5 format - Spring 2015 - ISSN 1755-0009

Texts, poems, images on the theme of 'The Oneiric City' - including:

  • Kenneth Cox, Dreaming The City By Day - an account of a ludic exploration of the city undertaken by Leeds Surrealist Group
  • Bruno Jacobs, Notes On The Oneiric City - on the dream-like atmosphere of certain cities
  • Guy Girard, One City Is Another - on the superimposition of one city onto another
  • Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Rêvilleros - reveries on Santiago de Compostela, Nantes and Prague
  • Bill Howe, Into The Desert Of Mirrors And Magnifiers - a subjective commentary on a ludic exploration, 'Deserts In The City', of a neutral area of Leeds, followed by individual and collective evidence
  • Josie Malinowski, Explorations In An Oneiric City - an illustrated account from 'Deserts In The City'
  • Gareth Brown, Descent From The Black Plain - an hallucinatory text from 'Deserts In The City'
  • Ody Saban, Natural Defenestration - a personal memoir of Istanbul
  • Jonathan Tooke, Life On Staircases - a tale about a discovered notebook that contains fragments of strange oneiric experiments
  • Joël Gayraud, Panic Square - a short tale of a disturbing disorientation
  • poems by Kenneth Cox, Bill Howe, Vangelis Koutalis
  • images by Jan Drabble, Kathleen Fox, Juan Carlos Otaño, Michael Richardson, Ody Saban, Pierre-André Sauvageot
  • reviews by Andy Boobier, Gareth Brown, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Bill Howe, Mike Peters, Michael Richardson

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Phosphor 3

Phosphor No.3 - Memory Reclaimed

'Childhood memories, very much like dreams or primitive myths, can provide us with the keys to analogical thought; indeed, the morphologies of dreams and childhood memories are very closely linked and the exploration of the their latent narratives can lead to a rediscovery of what has been lost, which, paradoxically, is something that in the depths of our spirit we already know.'
- from the editorial, Artery of Hope, by Kenneth Cox

84 pages - B5 format - Winter 2011 - ISSN 1755-0009

Texts, poems, images on the theme of 'Memory Reclaimed' - including:

  • Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Gherasim Luca: Reinvent Everything - an essay on the Romanian poet
  • Three pieces on childhood memory by Bill Howe, Sarah Metcalf & Eugenio Castro
  • Mike Peters, The Ruins of Memory and No Hot Ashes - two texts on memory & history
  • Lurdes Martínez, Echoes of Experience Ruined - an essay on memory & place
  • an interview with Jan Švankmajer by Sarah Metcalf
  • Bruno Solarik, Our Dreams Are A Second Life - an essay on Svankmajer's latest film
  • Sarah Metcalf, Playing Memory Games - an essay on the collective exploration of memory, followed by extracts from two memory games played by Leeds Surrealist Group
  • supplement: responses to a ludic enquiry
  • poems by Kenneth Cox, Gherasim Luca, John Hartley Williams
  • images by Stephen J. Clark, Jan Drabble, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Bill Howe, Juan Carlos Otaño

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Phosphor 2

Phosphor No.2 - Phantom Objects

'It would not be an exaggeration to state that, without grasping the fundamental and continuing importance of objects (both poetically and critically) within the surrealist movement, one would fail to understand Surrealism itself.'
- from the editorial, Of Phantoms and Representations, by Kenneth Cox

72 pages - B5 format - Autumn 2009 - ISSN 1755-0009

Texts, poems, images on the theme of 'Phantom Objects' - including:

  • Bruno Solarik, Palpable Phantoms - as perceived by the interwar Czechoslovak surrealists
  • Tributes to Franklin Rosemont by Michaël Löwy and Guy Ducornet
  • Fetish and The Magic of Objects - two essays by Jan Švankmajer
  • Midland Red - a short story by John Hartley Williams
  • The Substanced Object and Melancholy Ghosts - two illustrated reflections by Eugenio Castro
  • Stephen J. Clark, The Absent Double - an essay on objects
  • Pervert, Tramp or Delinquent? - reflections by Peter Overton upon the game 'Explorations of Absence' played by Leeds Surrealist Group
  • poems by Andrew Boobier, Franklin Rosemont
  • images by Jan Drabble, Kathleen Fox, Peter Overton, Franklin Rosemont, John Welson

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Phosphor 1

Phosphor No.1 - Narratives of Absence

'It is ironic that those who like to refer to surrealism's 'legacy' look anywhere but to surrealism itself for its continuity.'
'Today, surrealism's dynamic has many vectors throughout the world, not only in the form of various organised groups, and in their activities and projections into the public sphere, but also in those individuals who prefer to adventure alone.'
'…what distinguishes such practices that are termed 'surrealist' is a question of intention and of intelligence, propelled from within a social, political and moral dimension; it is thus, moreover, a sensibility, a way of looking at and acting upon the world.'
- from the editorial, To Be Continued..., by Kenneth Cox

68 pages - B5 format - Summer 2008 - ISSN 1755-0009

Texts, poems, images on the theme of 'Phantom Objects' - including:

  • Ted Joans, I, Black Surrealist - an extract from his unpublished autobiography
  • Eugenio Castro, The Limitless Mirror - a reflection upon absence
  • Leeds Surrealist Group, from Explorations of Absence - taken from a collective game exploring the relationship between abandoned places, their images and lost objects
  • short stories by - Rikki Ducornet, Michael Richardson, John Hartley Williams
  • poems by Andrew Boobier, Kenneth Cox, Ted Joans, Kateřina Piňosová
  • images by Gareth Brown, Stephen J. Clark, Kathleen Fox, Rik Lina, Peter Overton, Martin Trippett, John Welson

Please choose correct price from the drop-down menu
UK £7.50
Europe £9.50
USA & Rest of the World £11.00
Price including postage & packing

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