The perfect book for the modern attention span, with no plot to remember or characters to keep track of, Microsoft Mon Amour by Dutch multimedia artist Hilarius Hofstede dissects the age of digital mass communication and pop culture in gleefully
subversive style. In 7744 one-liners best ingested and savored in small quantities, the text zaps from celebrity tweet to Paleolithic cave art, from Dr. Funkenstein to Donald Trump. A must-read for all who long to be liberated from the mind-numbing
effects of the information superhighway.
Hilarius Hofstede (Hilversum, NL, 1965)
Bio
Hilarius Hofstede (1695) is a Dutch multimedia artist and author whose work has been shown in major art venues around the world. He recently composed the lyrics for the forthcoming album Mastervolt by legendary N.Y. funk band Defunkt, and is renowned
for his dazzlingly experimental prose work De Markies van Water. He is the originator of the ongoing and ever-expanding group show Bison Caravan, which travels the world and has thus far landed in five different countries, amongst which Mali and
Brazil. Hofstede currently lives and works in Amsterdam. Microsoft Mon Amour is his first publication in the United States.
Dirk Vis, author and editor of De Gids - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fascinating read. Genre? Hard to pinpoint. It's epic and its poetic. This could definitely not have been written in any other times than these and yet it is of all times. Well worth diving into for shorter and for longer splashes. Perfect antidote
for a stressed out mind with any number of unread emails.
Prof. Jan Teunen - Geisenheim, Germany
Hilarius Hofstede is not only a brilliant artist, he is also a master of language. With his book Microsoft Mon Amour, he proves this once again. People and organizations are entering an area for which they have not yet developed the language.
Hilarius Hofstede has found it in a remote corner of the universe. Enjoy!
Dick van Arkel, Artist - Soest, Netherlands
The WorldWideWeb delivered the words. Spiderman Hilarius Hofstede built up a new constellation of lines. If you rotate the book Microsoft Mon Amour a quarter you see a mountainous landscape in which you climb continuing regular hills of words
and every time you tumble into an abyss of just a few letters, after which the association of a new climb starts again. Like life, it goes on and on.
Argyrios (Aris) Emmanouloudis, PhD candidate in Media Studies/Journalist - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
A book that you can read in a day, a week or a month. You can take your time to explore this book (or non-book), while at the same time engaging in a dialogue about current affairs and trending topics. Using terminology of the Digital Age, Hofstede
is speaking a language both understandable and distant at the same time: you will find yourself recognizing some of the references, smiling, or even becoming worried and upset while browsing this torrent of data that can lead to ‘infoflation’
if not careful. There has always been the question bothering me: Shall we really log off? And how? Hofstede is posing all the questions, but leaves the answers to us.
Evangelia Theodoridou, Film Critic - Toronto, Canada
This text is outside pleasure, outside criticism, unless it is reached through another text of bliss: you cannot speak “on” such a text, you can only speak “in” it, in its fashion, enter into a desperate plagiarism, hysterically affirm the void
of bliss.
Georgios Naziroglou - PhD candidate in Law - Paris, France
Reading this book made me feel stressful. I couldn’t figure out the sense of it and I thought that reaching the end of it would be useless.
Aikaterini Boulaka – Artist - Thessaloniki, Greece
Fantastic work. The author found an innovative way to describe the reality of our modern age. Through all these words and sentences, he dares to touch the isolation of modern people who are hiding behind anonymity to express their feelings and
substituting them with a PC or laptop. And as the author says: “Laptops are like pets, they want to sleep with you in bed.”
Pieter Smit - Scenographer - Lago di Como, Italy
Reading Microsoft Mon Amour made me realise that the biggest design flaw of the computer is the screen, it’s made the world flat again.
Philip Harris - Photographer - London UK
199 delicately stratified, lollipop hued, quantumly-entangled slivers: a multidimensional navigator's chart...sugar-paper ribbons of supernaturally generated tickertape reportage, tightly wrapped around an ever-throbbing Wurlitzer-jukebox heart:
a fantastic tragic-ecstatic ode to the 21st century, hurtling through the webiverse, transmogrifying everyone and everything in its wake, everywhere: from Big Bang to next Tuesday.
Adrian Lee - Artist - London UK
Notwithstanding the particular use, and usages, of the very words themselves, there is, to boot, the orders into which those specific pieces of vocabulary have been placed into. A terrific triumph.
Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, Author - Thessaloniki, Greece
Microsoft Mon Amour is an interesting piece of poetry. Its shape seems to resemble the process of surfing on the Internet in order to explore its darkest corners. Moreover, the new language that is being presented can charm the reader and lead
him to a story that depicts the multidimensional paradox of our contemporary world.
Michiel van Nieuwkerk - Photographer and Artist - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
‘Microsoft Mon Amour leest als een een speer die door de tijdsgeest vliegt.’
Josephine Van Balen, Geestelijk Verzorger - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
‘Een waarachtige en zeer originele wake up call om de schaduwzijde van de digitalisering onder de aandacht te brengen. Hilarius is een performer maar bovenal een ziener.’
