Born out of a reflection on the nature of images and their nocturnal vocation, Better in the Dark than His Rider is both a fable and a survival guide. The collected work by Francesco Merlini spans different years, possibly quite distant from one other; shot in all four continents, his pictures reveal the unique perspective of someone who, like a sleepwalker guided by ghosts, seeks for something nameless. The title is drawn, almost literally, from a 19th century manual of optics. The original sentence – “[…] much better in the dark than his rider” – refers to a horse’s night vision compared to a human’s.
The selected sequence of pictures unravels around the transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep, engaging with hypnagogia as a sensory yet dreamlike mode of semiconscious representation. Images make up mind’s psychic contents. If in dreams self-consciousness is suspended and images look real to the extent that we are sleeping, when dozing we can consciously guide them because partially aware that we are dreaming. Stated otherwise, in lucid dreams we know we are faced with the contents of our imagination, whose edges appear hallucinatory. Dreaming is a perpetual state we do experience both asleep and awake. Thanks to imagination, the dream matter turns into the mind’s real object again.

23,5×31 cm
Hard cover with embossing
Offset UV
80 pages
Paper:
Munken Lynx Rough 150 g/m²
Fedrigoni Sirio Nero 140 g/m²
Wibalin Natural Petal

Editer l’art – Leszek Brogowski
Bande Annonce - Cinéma & Bande Dessinée - Coll.
Gros Gris n°4 - Duel
Norovirus - Orgie en mers chaudes - Claude Grétillat
La tour Tatline - Georgi Stanishev
La prise - Florian Javet
Titanic Orchestra - Julien Mauve
Ellipse - Ismail Alaoui-Fdili
A Home with no Roof - Sara De Brito Faustino
Le blanc nez - Fouss Daniel
Délié - Baptiste Oberson
Good Company - Paul Van der Eerden
Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms - Katy Deepwell (ed.)
Photographic Fields - Joël Van Audenhaege
Dada à Zurich – Le mot et l’image (1915-1916)Hugo Ball
Holy Mountain - Maia Matches, Knuckles & Notch
Saint Julien l'hospitalier Tome 2 - Claire Pedot
Philonimo - Le Papillon de Tchouang-Tseu - Alice Brière-Haquet, Raphaële Enjary
Mosaïque d'asphalte - Jack Torrance
Dédale - Laurent Chardon
We want to look up at the Sun, but could the Sun be looking down on us? - Rudy Guedj & Olivier Goethals
Before Science - Gilles Pourtier, Anne-Claire Broc'h
Cruiser l'utopie – L'après et ailleurs de l'advenir queer - José Esteban Muñoz
Hybrid heads - Daniela Dossi
Heads Together – Weed and the Underground Press Syndicate - David Jacob Kramer
Wayfaring - Patrick Messina, André S. Labarthe
Jířa - Lucie Lučanská
ICCMHW - Atelier Choque Le Goff
Grilles - Zelda Mauger
Dessins pour Rugir - Virginie Rochetti
Link Human / Robot - Collectif dir. Emmanuelle Grangier
Bacon le Cannibale - Perrine Le Querrec
Donne des racines au loup-garou & fais courir l'arbre la nuit - Pauline Barzilaï
Burning Images, A History of Effigy Protests - Florian Göttke
Soleil, eau, vent : vers l'autonomie énergétique - Delphine Bauer
La France de tête #04
Entretiens – Jérôme Dupeyrat
Eldorado maximum - Les commissaires anonymes
Rois de la forêt - Alain Garlan
Le vieux père - Laurent Kropf
Artzines # 10 - Show & Tell #2 NY Special 































