CC: (Myself by Myself Publishers) 2023 was produced in reaction to the history of uncensored self-publishing writings which circulated in post-soviet union Russia during a time when what could be officially published was severely controlled. Given the neologism, Samizdat (from the root sam- “self” and izdatestvo “publishing” in Russian) writers were able to create two copies of their writing using carbon paper over tissue paper, circulating the second copy to be passed around from person to person, friend to friend. Historian Ludmila Alexeyeva described Samizdat as “mushroom spores, spreading wide to create links among people who formed unofficial networks.”. The subtitle of this piece “Myself by Myself publishers” pays homage to the poet Nikolay Glazkov who would note, Samsebyaizdat meaning, “Myself by Myself Publishers”, the CC: refers to the common contemporary practice of Carbon Copying another in an email.

The statements the carbon and its copy make such as, “A=A, yet we are not “das selbe”, “the same”, “which one of us thinks, and which one of us is,” and “now A is A the abstractness of my identity rises to my surface.” are in reference to Martin Heidegger’s, “The Principle of Identity” from Essays in Metaphysics: Identity and Difference (1960), where he attempts to deconstruct the difficulties with what is equal and what is the same, if two things are the same, then what makes them “individuals”, and fundamentally beings?

These are the things the carbon and the copy grapple with, as despite their sameness one is charged with the outer disposition of being the “original” while one is the “copy”, each considered of more, or less value depending on the context. The carbon attempts many forms of communication with its copy, using the artist as its tool, words, shapes, and binary code, yet naturally will never be able to illustrate the differences in their being due to their inability to exist outside of an echo chamber.

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