Kasper Opstrup's "The Way Out" (2017)

Brooklyn, New York, US: Autonomedia (book, theory, history), 2017.
8.5" x 5.5" x 0.625", 252 pages, softcover, ISBN 978-1-57027-328-5.

The Way Out: Invisible Insurrections and Radical Imaginaries in the UK Underground 1961-1991 by Kasper Opstrup, as published in softcover by Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York, US) in 2017. Cover art by Ferdinand Ahm Krag. Photo credit to Kristoffer Juel Poulsen. Design by Jesse Jacob. Interior Layout by Margaret Killjoy.

As noted on the back cover, "The Way Out examines the radical political and hedonist imaginaries of the experimental fringes of the UK underground from 1961 to 1991. By examining the relations between collective and collaborative practices with an explicit agenda of cultural revolution, Kasper Opstrup charts a hidden history of experiments with cultural engineering, expanding current discussions of art, medias, politics, radical education and the occult revival [...] Here we encounter a series of figures – including Alexander Trocchi, R. D. Laing, Joseph Berke, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge – that blurred the lines between inner and outer, the invisible and the material."

Section 5, "Academy 23", is centered around William S. Burroughs, although mentions of Burroughs may be found throughout.

Contents: 

• Acknowledgments
• I: INTRODUCTION:
• 1.1. Apocalyptic Futures of the Past
• 1.2. From Beyond
• 1.3. The Constraint of Souls
• II: THE SIGMA PROJECT:
• 2.1. On the Ecstatic Edge
• 2.2. First Connective Points: Beat, Situationism and the 1960s
• 2.3. Sigma – A Potted History
• 2.4. The Invisible Insurrection
• III: THE ANTI-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON:
• 3.1. Society as a Madhouse
• 3.2. The Anti-University
• IV: THE POLITICS OF EXPERIENCE:
• 4.1. Beyond Art and Politics
• 4.2. Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
• 4.3. Who Owns You?
• V: ACADEMY 23:
• 5.1. 'Curse, Go Back!'
• 5.2. Academy 23
• 5.3. Wild Boys Always Shine
• VI: THEE TEMPLE OV PSYCHICK YOUTH:
• 6.1. Our Aim Is Wakefulness, Our Enemy Is Dreamless Sleep
• 6.2. The Frequency of Truth
• 6.3. The Wastelands of the Real vs the Kingdoms of the Occult
• 6.4. When Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted
• VII: INVISIBLE INSURRECTIONS AND RADICAL IMAGINARIES:
• 7.1. A Sinister Dream Factory
• 7.2. Across the Great Divide
• VIII: AFTERWORD
• 8.1. Conclusions
• Endnotes
• List of Works Cited