Lenore Malen: The New Society for Universal Harmony

Cultural Writing. In THE NEW SOCIETY FOR UNIVERSAL HARMONY, Lenore Malen uses pseudo-documentary photos, video and audio transcriptions, "testimonials," case histories, and arcane imagery to archive the functioning of her own reinvention of the utopian society established in Paris in 1793 by the followers of Franz Anton Mesmer known as La sociA[a¬AtA[a¬A de l'harmonie universelle. Malen's New Society comes out of her long-term installation project and live performances of case histories and treatments performed at the fabricated Society imagined in Athol Springs, New York. The book expands the scope of the project to include original fiction and essays by "fellow Harmonites" Jonathan Ames, Geoffrey O'Brien. Pepe Karmel, Nancy Princenthal, Irving Sandler, Susan Canning, Barbara Tannenbaum, Jim Long, Mark Thompson, and others, plus a first-person account of Malen's discovery and two-year involvement with the Society.