Two New Books

Electric Boy Scout:: Guerrilla Typewriter is a largely non-fiction book dealing with the pressures on Control and the possibility of using art and literature as methods of social resistance. Part essays, part interview, part stories, and part something else, this book takes you on a trip to the future and beyond.

Get a copy of the book from Amazon here or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com to order direct from the publisher

File Folders: Painting in Ephemera is a brand new book of art featuring stunning paintings from a personal collection made during 2022. A great way to bring home a thrilling series, you can get copies of the book from Amazon here or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com to order a copy direct from the publisher.

Submissions Open for D.O.R Issue 3

It’s that time again! The LJMcD Communications magazine of experimental art and literature is getting ready for a third issue and we’re looking for your work!

We can’t pay anything for your submissions, but we do offer contributors a print copy of the magazine at reduced cost (just covering printing and shipping)

All submissions should be in word doc format and sent to lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Please include a short third person bio in the body of your email to accompany your piece.

Poetry: please send up to five poems not more than a million lines. Any subject, any style, but the weirder and more experimental the better

Prose: short stories, text experiments, essays and whatever else you got up to 5000 words.

Art: send up to 5 high def images. Please include titles and any accompanying information you would like printed alongside your images (medium, process, etc.) It’s also fine if you want your if you want your images to stand alone without extra information.

Anything Else: we are open to new ideas and anything else you’ve got. If you’ve got something that you think would fit within an issue of D.O.R, please don’t hesitate to send it through or send a query and see if it would work.

And, if this is your first time, don’t forget to read the past two issues of D.O.R which can be read or purchased here

The Sound of a Pistol: Child’s Play and Other Games

The brand new book from Lachlan J McDougall and their small children is here and available for purchase.

This stunning collaborative effort is sure to dazzle and delight and you’ll be amazed at what these small forces of nature come out with.

All proceeds from this book go towards new toys and art supplies for the little ones.

Purchase a copy from Amazon here or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com to order a copy direct from LJMcD Communications.

Systems

Systems is ten images based off the idea of an image processing system. We take a verbal cue from out in the aether and we transpose to the picture language. We distort what is through our lens of system. A rigorous system no doubt but what remains is another matter entirely. These photographs represent the functional world reduced to mere repeating patterns. Things are brought down to a simple gridwork or a fantastic kaleidoscope and move further and further away from that thing which they are. The physical world is no longer recognisable and the representative function of the photograph is nullified.

All images, bar one, were produced by taking a photograph of a thing then using a standardised procedural system to overlay image and distort functionality. The thing no longer remains although it has been multiplied ad infinitum. The odd image out was produced by abstracting photography away from the object and moving towards the infinitesimal—the thing becomes blind to our looks and takes on a textural quality like trees on a distant hill. I’ll let you decide which image is the odd one out.

Systems distorts the commonplace by repetition and abstraction. Nothing remains when you see a thing multiplied beyond the point of counting. The ocean is not a glass of water, a roll of paper is not a tree—these images are not their preceding form, they are something new that stands outside of function and time. They often take on a stark minimalist quality—the thing which looms so large is reduced to a mere pattern that stands in for the entire universe—or else they explode in kaleidoscopic mandalas where the thing loses itself in the monumental ebb and flow of time. Systems is the point of departure, even the name loses meaning.

Each image is on offer in a limited signed and numbered edition of 10 per photograph. For affordability and accessibility there is also an unsigned ‘print on demand’ option. Prints can be purchased from artpal.com or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com for pricing and details.

System #1

System #2 (Fish Eyes Bug Out)

System #3 (Viper’s Nest)

System #4

System #5

System #6

System #7 (Keyhole Lights)

System #8 (Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn)

System #9

System #10 (Future Proof)

D.O.R Issue 2 now Available

In what seems like a whirlwind, Issue 2 of the LJMcD Communications literature and arts magazine filled up and hit the shelves!

You can purchase print copies of the magazine from Amazon right here or you can email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order details and I will send a copy to you asap.

Or, feel free to download and read this free pdf and share far and wide!

D.O.R Issue 2Download

I do recommend getting the print edition if you can afford it, the art and poems just look better on the printed page, but if not, it’s more important that the work gets read.

Enjoy! And keep an eye out for issue 3!

Submissions Open for D.O.R issue 2

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

Hi all,

I’m happy to announce that the LJMcD Communications literature and arts magazine, D.O.R, is opening up for a fabulous second issue.

I’m looking for poetry, prose, and art on the edge of sanity. Bold new experiments in text and form. Anything that pushes the boundaries of what we can do with language and symbol. Full details below.

POETRY: Send up to five poems as a single word document. No restriction on form or subject matter, just make it interesting. You’ll find I’m more interested in experimental poetry than I am in traditional sonnets and the like, but I’m open to anything. Up to a million lines, but make them count!

PROSE: Up to 5,000 words in a word document. Short stories, prose poems, essays on contemporary magick, whatever ya got, just make sure you’re doing something new with your words. I want my head to spin with the modern world.

ART: Send up to five high def images in a single email along with any additional information you want published like titles and media.

Send all submissions to lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com. Please include a brief third person bio in the body of your email to accompany your piece if it is accepted.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer payment for accepted pieces, but all contributors will get the option of a print copy of the magazine at printing/shipping cost.

You can check out the first issue of the magazine in pdf or print copy here

Now, go forth and send me your best and weirdest work!

Electric Boy Scout:: Guerrilla Typewriter pre-order and proof copies

Hi all,

The largely non-fiction book from Lachlan J McDougall, Electric Boy Scout:: Guerrilla Typewriter, is comin out in June and pre-orders for the print book are now open.

The book deals with language and symbol and how we can manipulate these to bring about a social artistic revolution and end the influence of Control in our day to day lives. Let’s see what the Amazon blurb has to say.

The future is now and there’s nothing left but the recordings.
This book is a program for taking on the world at large. A step by step guide to bringing about the revolution from within. You may try to fight the change, but when the Scouts come calling, there’s nothing else you can do.

A deconstruction of the role of language and a prescient dissection of the modern Control virus, Electric Boy Scout is full of helpful and practical tips for circumventing the Control narrative and substituting your own. Learn to take control of your life. Learn the limits of what you are doing and how to push them ever further. Learn a few tricks from the master at work.

You can pre-order the book by emailing lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order details and a print copy will be sent to you soon after release date in June. Or, to get the book sooner (as well as getting a limited collector’s edition), reach out and see if any of the limited proof copies are still available. In addition to your proof copy, LJMcD Communications will send you a free pdf of the book so you can get reading straight away.

So, get in touch and order your proof copy, or pre-order a print copy today!

LJMcD Communications call for Ephemera

As you may know, LJMcD Communications publishes free zines and pamphlets from time to time. To date these have been the work of press founder and main contributor, Lachlan J McDougall, but now the call is open to have your work published as part of this wonderful free mail out network.

What we’re looking for: set your word document to A5 paper size and put together material up to 52 A5 pages in length. Please, no more than that as the zines become unwieldy, but anything up to that length is workable.

We’re looking for experiments here. We’re looking for something that’s been on your mind and you just need to get it out. You might want to check out the free pamphlets that have already been distributed here.

What’s in it for you: well, it’s a free mail out service, so there’s no monetary recompense, but it’s a great way to get your work out to a wide audience and it will put you in a good position if you ever want to submit a book for consideration with LJMcD Communications. There’ll be the option to limit the number of print copies if you’re into rarity, but otherwise your pamphlet will be distributed to the mailing network and included with orders of books and other mail outs and go on the ‘Catalogue of Ephemera’ for collectors of LJMcD Communications work.

Your pamphlet will also be put aside for inclusion in an anthology volume collecting all the LJMcD Communications ephemera in the future.

You will hold complete copyright over your work and can withdraw the zine at any time or use it for your own purposes, whatever you like!

There is also an option to put the pamphlet out as a full book after a period of time to set it in stone as part of the LJMcD Communications catalogue.

How do I submit: start by familiarising yourself with the zines the press has already put out, then put together your own zine manuscript and email it to lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com for consideration. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible and let you know how to proceed from there.

Public Artist: Unceremonious Nudes (NSFW)

Images exposing the ugliness of flesh the stark naked reality devoid of sexuality. The artistic conceit is complete—completely open, completely nude. Photographs and digital manipulations to highlight the fractured nature of reality the stark poses of an artist whittled down to a fine point.

The focus is on the body as a system of disembodied parts. The public artist is a fractured sensibility each shred of self subject to infinite dissection and replication. The focus is on the body as an object of abjection, the usual sexual vigour drained away to reveal a vicious ugliness. There is also a softness and vulnerability there—the artist is forced to be open by the nature of their craft, they are forced into nudity, prostitution and a fractured self.

These images belie the world of the modern artist—I am the artist when I am open. They are a prostitution of the senses gleaming cold reality from a distant eye. You as the viewer are complicit. You take the images as aesthetic slices, pieces of the artist to eat up and digest. You are looking through the keyhole into a private world exploded into the public eye. . Where does the art world draw the line?

Each image is available in a limited run of 10 signed and numbered prints with the option to release more in the future. There is also an unsigned ‘print on demand’ option for art accessibility. There was originally going to be a folio art book released to coincide with this series, but personal circumstances have brought me to withdraw some of the images and the set you see before you is incomplete. I did not feel comfortable releasing a book of the incomplete set and so you book lovers will have to wait until June for the File Folders: Painting in Ephemera book to be released with the fabulous file folder series of painitings.

To purchase prints of any of the images in this series visit artpal.com or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order and I will get back to you with pricing and print details.

See the series (incomplete) here:

Four Cocks Meet

Undressing

Hair in Excelcis Deo

To Examine the Body

Hand Fractured Flesh

Suggestion of a Sex

Hand in Movement

Pubic Hair Opening onto the World

Nipple in Light

Pubic Hair in Shades of Light

Nipple with Tattoo

Penis Flaccid Contemplative

Penis Disembodied Ghost of Past

Penis Head in Bloom

Fountain

Review: ‘Notes on ‘Camp” by Susan Sontag

Two essays on art and culture in the modern world, this small collection is often insightful if rarely inventive. The ‘Notes’ section is a pretty good description of the pleasures of campiness in the arts, but I feel that it doesn’t offer too much in the way of useful critical analysis.

More of a set of descriptions that real engagement with the subject matter, there is a feeling that these two essays just don’t go far enough. What they do, they do well, but it stops just short of where it’s about to get really interesting.

The prose too is nothing to write home about. Clear as the matter allows, but rarely beautiful, it doesn’t engage particularly or draw the reader on through the book. There is nothing particularly the matter with the prose, but it once again falls just short of truly interesting.

Overall, this book was an okay addition to the Penguin Modernist series. I don’t regret reading it, but I don’t feel like I learned much either.