The Onion: Tal R, Onions, bronze, 2005. Courtesy: Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin; photograph: Jochen Littkemann.



Stripes: Jacques Carelman, Catalogue of Extraordinary Objects, London: Abelard-Schuman, 1969.




Salt & Pepper: Offices on Castle Street, Northwich, leaning backwards and almost toppling over as result of subsidence from the salt mine beneath, 1891. Courtesy: Cheshire Museum Services.

The Nose: 'Here's a precious go them infernal vegetable pills have taken root in my nose. It was reddish before but now it's carrotty!' W Spooner, London, early 1800s. Courtesy: The Wellcome Library, London.




Folly: 'A scene from Porcelain', Paul Derval, Trans. Lucienne Hill, The Folies Bergère, London: Methuen, 1955.




Mice: Mediaeval fresco recently uncovered in an Austrian church, 14th century.




String: For 75 years the two knots above were believed to be completely different knots when in fact they are the same knot represented differently.
Andrzej Solecki, 'Simple Crossing Projections of a Polygon', www.cs.mcgill.ca

Implicasphere is an occasional mini-publication that seeks to unearth and revive compelling, illuminating and curious ideas in the form of image and text fragments taken unadulterated from fields as diverse as folk craft, nuclear physics, metaphysical poetry, pulp novels, linguistics, criminology, film noir and astrology. Each issue takes the form of a single printed broadsheet and has as its theme an everyday word that seems direct and concrete: mice, string, the nose.

Implicasphere's collage effect combines often incompatible shards of thought in webs of association that tangle the meaning of those simple words. Its progenitors include folk almanacs, the Little Blue Book series (US, 1919-78), and themed anthologies such as The Saturday Book (1940-60s). Not the scholarly paper it may appear at first to be, Implicasphere's introductory essay hypothesises and speculates, mixing up doggerel and scientific fact. This project is piratical, amateur and partial, dependent as it is on the vagaries of its editors' imaginations. It leaves its material in an unstable state, caught in the excitement of the first encounter with an unfamiliar idea. It hopes to provoke and inspire in the reader consternation, intrigue and reverie. To find out more about the word 'implicasphere', click here.

Six issues have been produced to date on String, Mice, Folly, The Nose, Salt & Pepper and the current issue Stripes (Summer 2007); future editions include The Onion (Winter 2007) and Smoke (Summer 2008). The current issue is distributed in Cabinet magazine (www.cabinetmagazine.org). To order back issues of Implicasphere, email us at orders@implicasphere.org.uk.

We have been developing themed events this year and so far have looked at onions with experts from the fields of cosmology, literature and magic (Photographers' Gallery, London) and brought together, in an illustrated talk, magical and musical performances with smoke (Cornerhouse, Manchester). To find out more about our events, click here.

We are currently researching Onions, Smoke and some extra themes for a future Implicasphere book. To see a full list of themes, and to contribute ideas for content, click here.

To contact the editors, send feedback and ask for general information, email info@implicasphere.org.uk.

Please note, we will automatically add email correspondents to our mailing list to let you know about future editions and events. Please add a request to your email if you do not wish to be added.

Implicasphere is edited by Cathy Haynes and Sally O'Reilly and published by Implicasphere Ltd, London. Registered company no. 5757303; ISSN 1742-8866. To view our biographies click here.

String, Mice and Folly were commissioned by the Pier Trust. Original design concept by Hoop Design (www.hoopdesign.co.uk). The Nose, Salt & Pepper and Stripes are designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio, and supported by the Moose Foundation for the Arts and The Elephant Trust. Stripes is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation. Stripes, The Onion and Smoke, and the Implicasphere project overall, are supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England, London.