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

La Vie moderne - Augustin Rebetez
Un essai sur la typographie - Eric Gill
La prise - Florian Javet
Les Climats II (Japon) - Lola Reboud, Mariko Takeuchi
Saveurs imprévues et secrètes - Gilbert Lascault
Le chateau enchanté - Atelier Mclane
Saint Julien l'hospitalier Tome 2 - Claire Pedot
Le singe et le bijoux - Roxane Lumeret
Illusive prosody - Alex Beaurain
America - Ayline Olukman, Hélène Gaudy
Saint Julien l'hospitalier Tome 1 - Claire Pedot
Atopoz - Collectif
Karbone Magazine n°8 - Parasite
Tomber dans l'escalier - Jasper Sebastian Stürup
Hobo Nickel - Damien Sauvage
Good Company - Paul Van der Eerden
Dessins pour Rugir - Virginie Rochetti
Mökki n°2
Catalogue Art Guys - That's painting productions, Bernard Brunon
In The Navy - Julien Kedryna
Bambi # 4 - Collectif
Sillo n°3 - Le Fauve
Photographic Fields - Joël Van Audenhaege
Gros Gris n°4 - Duel
Poèmes - Yvonne Rainer
Tanière de lune - Maria-Mercé Marçal
Roven n°5
Temps d'arrêt - Etienne Buyse
Gnose & Gnose & Gnose - Aymeric Vergnon-d'Alençon
Jean-Jacques a dit - Angèle Douche
Dear Paul - Paul Van der Eerden
Dédale - Laurent Chardon
Étrangement seuls - Jean-Pascal Princiaux
Woman Journal Vol. 4 - Outils d'Émancipation (Tools for Emancipation)
Pectus Excavatum - Quentin Yvelin
Comment réparer : La maternité et ses fantômes - Iman Mersal
SKKS - Gilles Pourtier
Sans titre - Benjamin Hartmann
Sans titre - Chris Kiss
Watch out - Anne-Émilie-Philippe
Wayfaring - Patrick Messina, André S. Labarthe
L'internationale modique (AND 3) - J-M. Bertoyas
Retour d'y voir - n° 1 & 2 - Mamco
Le blanc nez - Fouss Daniel
Rasclose - Geoffroy Mathieu
Holy Mountain - Maia Matches, Knuckles & Notch
Before Science - Gilles Pourtier, Anne-Claire Broc'h 































