AUTOPSIA THANATOPOLIS BOOK
2016
Author: Alexei Monroe
Artist: Autopsia
Publisher: Divus
Format: Paperback
Size: 16 x 24 x 1,5 cm, Weight: 600 g
Page Extent: 112
ISBN: 978-80-86450-91-9
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Thanatopolis is the first extended work in English on a complex
and mystifying body of work, dating back to 1979. Now based in Prague, it is
an obscure part of industrial culture, which has been the subject of increasing
interest over the last decade. AutopsiA is a highly cryptic and esoteric project
so far ignored in the histories of this period. It uses an extremely diverse range
of musical, philosophical, theological, poetic, literary, ideological and artistic
sources, from biblical quotations to dubstep. The central theme this shadowy and
shifting identity explores is death. Working in music, graphics, installations and
film, AutopsiA intensively examines death as a cultural force that is increasingly
repressed. Thanatoplis examines the key processes behind AutopsiA´s work and
how it has often come to act as an uncanny commentary on future events.
Thanatopolis explores the implications of its work appearing in 21st Century
London, teetering on the brink of massive historical change and the attempted
technological abolition of death.
"With the increasing pixellation of history in the media age and the rise
of commodifiable humanist `utility´ art, the narcissistic fetish of individualism and
the `New Puritanism´ of third-stage (late-) Capitalism, Alexei Monroe´s illuminating
and thorough study of Autopsia is a reminder that non-aligned counter positions
are more essential than ever if we are not to live in Autopsia´s `Civilization of
Death´..." Dr. Simon Bell, Lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University
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