This September, in celebration of our 10th publication, Becoming Press presents: “ Πάμε Βενετία” — a hang-out and conference featuring many authors and collaborators of Becoming Press, in Venice, Italy. ✱✱✱  
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 Independent Publisher  ✱  Minor Theoretical Literature  ✱  Berlin/Nicosia
 


SIAHKAL 2.0 (2025)

A.I. Resurrected Discourse on Marxism & A.I.



by ‘Bizhan Jazani’, Parham Ghalamdar & Parsa Esmaeilzadeh



       Dimensions: 10.8x14.8cm 
       Binding: Perfect Bound 
       Pages: 126 pages
       ISBN: 978-9925-8207-7-1
        Language: English
       Released: 1st August 2025

       Author: ‘Bizhan Jazani’
       Translations: Parham Ghalamdar    
       Foreword: Parham Ghalamdar
       Afterword: Parsa Esmaeilzadeh 
       Illustrations: Parham Ghalamdar      
       Design & Typography: Palais Sinclaire & Parham Ghalamdar


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About


 At the core of this project is a translation of “Marxist Islam or Islamic Marxism,” a groundbreaking text written by Bizhan Jazani during his imprisonment in the 1970s under the Shah’s oppressive regime. Translated by Parham Ghalamdar, this work is accompanied by an introduction contextualizing Jazani’s radical vision. Ghalamdar also contributes a series of ASCII-style illustrations and diagrams—AI-assisted reinterpretations of Jazani’s original paintings and photographs—that bridge the past and present, offering a new perspective on his revolutionary artistry.

The foundation of this project, then, involved the training of an LLM on the works of Jazani—Bijan Jazani GPT—thus partially resurrecting a fallen revolutionary in order to employ their assistance in the production of translations, figures and diagrams, and so on. Thus, the book is replete with scores of ASCII-style illustrations, developed by the author alongside their ghostly, electronic mentor. This is a very sincere attempt to reconsider the possibilities of A.I., which presumably OpenAI never anticipated.

The project is available to read via a free PDF edition which you can access via Metalabel, but we wanted to commemorate this work with a limited edition print run, also available via Metalabel or our webstore.

Stockists


 More info coming soon.