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Marcelle Alix presents : an interview with Maria Fusco , editor of The Happy Hypocrite Maria Fusco was in residence at the Kadist Foundation ( Paris ) in December 2008 . After her presentation of The Happy Hypocrite at Castillo / Corrales , I contacted her to learn more about The Happy Hypocrite’s take on gender issues . I also wanted to question one of its specificities : reproductions of pages of different publications without comments or captions . Here are the answers that she was kind enough to give to my questions . Marcelle Alix : Do you see yourself as a feminist and how does The Happy Hypocrite deal with gender issues , if it does ? Why did you invite Cosey Fanni Tutti for an interview for the first issue of The Happy Hypocrite ? Why was it important to reproduce in that issue part of the magazine in which Cosey appears as a porn model ? Maria Fusco : I was / am very aware of the roles of women in art and especially in art writing and publishing , and , as a woman myself , feel compelled to return to the visibility of gender in a very direct sense in relation to my projects . This does not necessarily mean that I only work or would desire to work only with women of course , but it does mean that the busy editorial homunculus on my shoulder has much of the she - devil about her . Cosey appeals to this homunculus in that she is such a tempting and challenging framework to investigate . I feel that her work hasn’t been addressed thoroughly enough , and so much of our conversation centred on naming processes , Cosey’s name ( inside and outside ) of course is central to this . She was given it , yet she chooses to keep it , therein lies perhaps an inherent feminist paradox , in my view , this is central to a methodological usage of ‘Cosey’ the ‘Cosey Complex’ if you will ( this is something I have continued to consider and Cosey and I have continued to discuss ) . There is a direct relationship with her imagery and this naming process ; that’s evident of course . It’s interesting to note that issue one has been ‘snatched’ by customs on North American borders , we assume it’s because of the Cosey images , but we can’t be sure . The censorship is invisible and only shows itself as a no - show , in that they don’t arrive to the individuals and organisations we have addressed them to . I’m not unhappy about this , maybe some things are sent not to arrive , ( see Derrida’s postcards , or again don’t see them ) . MA : Why did you choose “Linguistic Hardcore” as a title / theme for the first issue ? Does it betray a taste for the Seventies on your part ? Post - structuralism ? How do you use the mise en abyme of other magazines ( like Cosey’s interventions or Bananas in the first issue ) and what do you think it brings to The Happy Hypocrite’s identity as an independent journal ? MF : I have mentioned elsewhere that I am not The Happy Hypocrite , rather we work together . I’ll stick with this , but add I have more responsibility for the building of a constituency of readers and writers than HH does — this is evident across my other activities as a writer and lecturer ( I am Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths in London ) — this means I’ve got to keep facing forwards even though , like Orpheus , I want to look back . HH doesn’t have to do the same as me ( even though I try and tell it to , for example , one can’t be sure how a commissioned work will look in print , it might be dreadful even if you think it will be great ) . “Linguistic Hardcore” is an uncharacteristic ( in terms of how the syntax is put together ) , phrase from Northern Irish poet Seamus Heaney . It appealed to me for a theme for issue one because , as a clumsy phrase , it seems to pull a number of strands of personal interests together , accidentally of course , but then the best things often are . It’s what you make of it , no ? As a theme ( each issue is themed by methodology rather than by subject ) it denotes a definite interest in the non - visual , or rather the translation in some cases of the visual in a textual language , this is the primary function of the journal , I suppose , a new space for this type of production : a serial production . Reproducing older magazines such as Bananas is an important element of the project , in that it situates the journal as essentially temporal in nature and that it does not claim to be interested in the ‘original’ as such but is essentially ‘original’ in nature . I like the look of old things . I don’t really like the look of new things . This is a proclivity which I feel I need to keep in check , but a habit that I can’t break just yet . Post - structuralism is very seductive , is it not ? But it too looks a bit frayed . In issue two I dreamt life into a magazine concept by US critic Barbara Reise : ‘ArtStra’ it was an unrealised project , never published in her life time , and so it is satisfying to be able to help a ghost : publishing seems the obvious way to do this , books are notoriously hard to burn . Petunia is a very interesting project to me , I have a mini - plan for an all - women issue of HH also .