Terms of Conditions, webshop

Terms of Conditions, webshop

Terms of Conditions Pocket Edition is for sale for €19,99 (ex shipping)
Order via karinabeumer@hotmail.com


BOOK REVIEW by Matthias Yzebaert

(DISCLAIMER: I helped proofread this art book/project aka I’m biased) Terms of Conditions (title mentioned p381, total 437p, 2021) “… is a choose-your-own-adventure book about a freelancer who simultaneously fires herself and resigns.” by Karina Beumer.

Fun! That’s what this book is. So it looks weird, it’s quite heavy & a big book too. You open the pages, & it asks you to make decisions. Decisions you make redirect you to different pages, different stories & situations, different essays until you reach the Epilogue. The End. But if you want, you can start again and make different decisions, different experience, etc…

What you get is ‘non linear’ reading, and I wonder if I after 4 tries, read the whole book? I like that. It means it’s easy to leave laying around, and pick it up again now and then, maybe get to a point in the book that you haven’t read yet.

What you get is strange illustrations and collages, strange stories and intellectual essays & excerpts on the subject of being a person in late-capitalist society (fuck yeeeeah 🤠 the good stuff!). The whole atmosphere is absurd, uncanny, silly, dreamy and reflective. This is what I like: The balance, between the artist obviously having a good time making this piece of art VS the heavy heady subject matter, it is just right.

Karina has her own style. It’s quirky and weird, between a good joke & a bad trip. It works well with stories, example, about a person living a working life, a house, suddenly being surrounded by strange forms, creatures that move about the house, slowly, but not being bothered by them. What is this? I dunno, but I enjoyed the atmosphere.

So if you want to try & experience another type of reading, this book could be it.

Quote: “Ultimately, we must return to what we used to call love, care, or desire and decolonize such emotions from market discourses and exploitative mechanisms. Entrepreneurship has become the unquantifiable neoliberal form of self-exploitation in the name of love.” (An act of love – Lara Garcia Diaz)