Hard Light was published in 1978 and authored by the two American artists Ed Ruscha and Lawrence Weiner. It is a small, strange, beguiling and wonderful publication.

It consists of 51 black and white photographs, which document several conversations between three women. There are nine chapters, and is completely textless apart from one line of text.

IN THE YEAR 2000 ALL RACECAR DRIVING WILL BE TAKEN OVER BY WOMEN

Incidentally the three women are Suzanne Chandler, Shelley Chamberlain and Susan Haller.

As a book (although I’m not so sure it is a book), it confirmed to me that things don’t have to be the way that things are supposed to be.

I knew this to be the case before looking through the book, it just meant that I wasn’t going mad, and if I was going mad, at least there were others going mad with me.

I connected with it.
And it was comforting.

Ed Ruscha describes this bizarre lineage as "the silver thread". Cultural synapses, sparking and fizzing, and sometimes, against all the odds, connecting to something else of interest.

And with a bit of luck, so it goes on.
And on.

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