Publications

SB-007
It's OK To Give It A Try 
Jul Gordon

Published November, 2024

We are following a bike ride through the city, past buildings, trees, graffitis, parks, ads. A inner voice sets in, speaking only in polarities: It's ok. It is not ok; it will do, it won’t. In SB-007, Jul Gordon tells us a tale as old as time: a tale of artistic brooding.

On route to an appointment, the protagonist is giving herself a pep talk: It's worth a try. You can give it a try. She is supposed to record singing pets in order to incorporate them into an art project. The passing urban scenery and the repeated mantras create a unquantifiable strangeness despite the rather familiar set up. The sober tone of the voice-over creates constant unease and even the quasi-documentary line drawings tingle with tension: clearly, the absurd feeds off reality. Eventually, the book turns on itself - is this already a story? Is the narrative enough? For a book? Well, it’s OK to give it a try.

Zine
Edition of 150
Numbered

The tape WELL DONE! by Tintin Patrone accompanies the book. Howling, whimpering animal sounds merge into rhythmic, machine-generated sounds, a digital voice output imitates different tones of the human voice, followed by actual human voices of proud pet owners who join in with songs of praise for their “good girls”. Between the heartwarming affection that animal sounds trigger in us and the humorizing incomprehension when humans think that animals can sing, WELL DONE! abruptly grows into a screeching creature. The boundaries between sounds produced by humans, machines and animals are rendered unrecognizable, or united in their primal nature, just so we can get ready for the wholesome soulful auto-tune grande finale: the cat piano lady.

Tape
Edition of 50
Numbered

SB-006
Labor
Dominik Dabrowski

Published November, 2024

Zine
Edition of 150

Numbered

Loosely based on their exhibition »Coral Teeth« in 2023, MacDonald & Gräf embark on a joint journey to the depths of the sea. Instead of trying to recreate a preconceived image, the form of their trip is established through shaping the material, similar to working with sculpture. The material in that case is photographic paper, treated with various chemicals in the darkroom, resulting in “photographs” that behold questions of materiality: Fear as material, Curiousness as material, Yearning as material, Chaos as material, Anticipation as material. The book will feature texts by Lulu MacDonald & @katrinkrumm.

SB-005
Katabasis
Lulu MacDonald & Maik Gräf

Published November, 2024

Zine
Edition of 150

Numbered

»I didn’t want any flowers« is a graphic tale based on the poetry collection Ariel by Sylvia Plath, weaving fragmented text and visual storytelling into a world entirely its own. We are immersed in a world of lyrical echoes and visual cues—teetering between the dreamlike and the kitsch, held back only by an underlying, elemental sense of unease: „There is something in the garden,“ and we’re we’re left to question whether we truly want to discover what—or who—it is.
Throughout the book, @luiseschaller employs a faux-naïve lens to explore vulnerability. Her almost childlike pencil drawings delicately trace themes of powerlessness, pain, and anger—alongside an urgent desire to escape.

We meander through this two-part narrative, amidst towering plants, star-speckled skies, and literal heart-shaped hearts beating in chests. Yet, it’s not a conventional journey. There’s no sweeping transformation, no dramatic arc. From the very first page, the ‚I‘ is fully self-aware, narrating their experiences with a stoic detachment: „I have become so small,“ leading to wry, melancholic lines like „I only wanted to lie like this.“
The result is a melancholic yet sharply defined worldview, steeped in dissent and emotional clarity, one that we can’t help but want to integrate into our own inner worlds.

SB-004
I Didn't Want Any Flowers
Luise Schaller

Published April, 2024

Zine
Edition of 150
Riso printed in Scarlet and Hunter Green
40 pages + postcard
200x240mm
Numbered

Wall hanging
Edition of 30
Screen print on cotton
300x400mm

In »Das Phantom«, Jenny Schäfer invites us into an in-between world: not fully comprehensible or tactile, yet there; a place to inhabit, beyond a fully alienated reality. In SB-003, Jenny Schäfer documents three visits to Disneyland Paris. The first visit (1993) was her father's idea. He is the initial fan, as Disneyland's quasi egalitarian use of all senses and the subtitled animated films were almost casually accessible for people with a disability. In subsequent visits in 2011 and 2021, Jenny captures her Disneyland impressions on camera. One time, for example, she circles the park grounds and documents its outer perimeters. Over the years, Jenny remains a fan, if ambivalent. By now, she visits with her own child.

In this tapestry tightly interwoven with the private and personal, we mainly see images of facades and built scenery. From the middle of SofortBooks' third issue, Elif Akyüz' text contribution “The most pleasurable of all possible worlds” unfolds, illuminating the phenomenon and person Disney, as well as the historical developments, and then-current philosophical thought on emerging cinema and mass entertainment, the pure commercialism of the postwar world, and the dazzling stories of capitalism.

However, the photos framing the text bluntly show: every facade is a fragile system, and as such prone to cracks and tearing. SB-003 takes a look at these complex structures and refrains from dismissing them a priori as superficial. Rather, any shopping mall must be considered as an entirely human site: build by humans, put to use, and used by humans. Disneyland, after all, is not fantasy, but a real place, with real humans, and real desires.

As we struggle to manifest this kind of place as something beyond reaffirming capitalism, we keep pondering the question: Is it possible to conceive of our wishes and desires as something real, no matter how ghostly, phantom-like they appear to us in this world? Even if we only perceive them through a distorted reflection, do they perhaps after all mirror a true longing, the one for the best of all worlds?

On the back side of Elif Akyüz' text, in between the in-between worlds of Jenny Schäfer, a pattern unfolds and refolds. Mandy Knospe's angry four-fold fist sucker-punches us straight into the next dimension.

SB-003
Das Phantom
Jenny Schäfer

Published October, 2023
Edition of 105 (Zine) + 15 (Edition)

Zine
Riso printed in Moss and Bisque
40 pages + 8 page fold-out
200x285mm
Numbered

Photo Print
Fine Art Print
210x300mm
Fuji Crystal Archive DP II
Numbered & signed by the artist

In Moshpit ABC, Louise Vind Nielsen explores the phenomenon of the moshpit—blurry, wild, and chaotic as it may seem—through a very clean and orderly structure: the alphabet. A is for Anarchy, B is for Break Something, C is for Care. Next to a collection of personal anecdotes (“It's the first part of my autobiography”, the author explains to us half joking, half serious), we find lyrics, quotes from novels, theoretical texts, movies, and also more ephemeral messages like writings on the wall of a loo in a squatted house. They function as starting points into the nuances of a (sub)cultural practice which remains never fully graspable as either/or. Louise takes us with her into “the pit” and becomes a relentless narrator: at times funny, at others philosophical, always casually honest.

SB-002
Moshpit ABC
Louise Vind Nielsen

Published March, 2023
Edition of 50 (Zine) + 50 (Edition)

Zine
Riso printed in Fluo Orange and Orange
40 pages
170x120mm
Numbered

Poster
Riso printed in Orange & Black
A2 on Fedrigoni Arena Natural Rough 120g

SofortBooks’ 1st release is by Viennese artist Richard Klippfeld.

»Import Export 2« erscheint unregelmäßig und beinhaltet Zeichnungen, Fotos, Memes, Scans, Kopien, Screenshots, Textfragmente und Müll aus dem Archiv von Richard Klippfeld.

Ziel der Reihe ist es, Teile des Archivs einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit niederschwellig zugänglich zu machen und durch die Möglichkeiten der fotografischen Reproduktion Unterschiede, Gemeinsamkeiten und neue Bedeutungszusammenhänge zwischen den Objekte herauszuarbeiten.

Organisiert in der sequentiellen Logik der Doppelseite innerhalb einer Publikation, bilden diese die Grundlage für neue Arbeiten und die Erweiterung einer zeichnerischen Praxis.

SB-001
Import Export 2
Richard Klippfeld

Published August, 2022
Edition of 20 + 40
Riso printed in Burgundy
16 pages

Numbered