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This book explores the tradition, impact, and contemporary relevance of two key ideas from Western Marxism: Georg Lukács's concept of reification, in which social aspects of humanity are viewed in objectified terms, and Guy Debord's concept of the spectacle, where the world is packaged and presented to consumers in uniquely mediated ways. Bringing the original, yet now often forgotten, theoretical contexts for these terms back to the fore, Johan Hartle and Samir Gandesha offer a new look at the importance of Western Marxism from its early days to the present moment-and reveal why Marxist cultural critique must continue to play a vital role in any serious sociological analysis of contemporary society.
Throughout the fin de siècle, "energy" was a buzzword that was used far beyond the boundaries of the sciences to negotiate the formative scope as well as limits of Western modernity. The human body was positioned at the center of the visualization of this enigmatic drive of all movement in discourses on labor and economics, physical culture, sport, art, and literature. It was through the body that this all-pervading and conditioning physical principle as well as its perceptual qualities were to be made tangible. This volume is dedicated to these "energetic bodies." The transdisciplinary individual contributions trace body scenarios of force and energy over the course of history from 1800 to the peak phase around 1900 and up to the present.
The Hawthorn Archive, named after the richly fabled tree, has long welcomed the participants in the various Euro-American social struggles against slavery, racial capitalism, imperialism, and authoritarian forms of order. The Archive is not a library or a research collection in the conventional sense but rather a disorganized and fugitive space for the development of a political consciousness of being indifferent to the deadly forms of power that characterize our society. Housed by the Archive are autonomous radicals, runaways, abolitionists, commoners, and dreamers who no longer live as obedient or merely resistant subjects. In this innovative, genre- and format-bending publication, Avery F...
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume brings together contributions by distinguished experts from different disciplinary fields for a multidimensional view on immersion in the visual arts and media. In the current media debate, immersion has frequently been linked to the advent of digital technology and its capacity to provide vivid sensations of being placed in or surrounded by an artificial space. The idea of ‘liquidity’ contained in this promise to plunge into another world informs wide areas of contemporary cultural imagination, referring to a myriad of phenomena that relate to experiences of uncertainty and instability, of complexity and change. Considering the fact, how...
How global contemporary art reanimates the past as a resource for the present, combating modern art's legacy of Eurocentrism. If European modernism was premised on the new—on surpassing the past, often by assigning it to the “traditional” societies of the Global South—global contemporary art reanimates the past as a resource for the present. In this account of what globalization means for contemporary art, David Joselit argues that the creative use of tradition by artists from around the world serves as a means of combatting modern art's legacy of Eurocentrism. Modernism claimed to live in the future and relegated the rest of the world to the past. Global contemporary art shatters th...
Into the Great Wide Open is a book about a search for a form of practice in architecture. Practice here is understood both as a critical reflection of a status quo and its history, as well as forms of (active) intervention through designing and planning. The book is a fragmentary snapshot of an on going, constantly developing and altering process to find a place in the production and reflection of our built environment, and implicitly disputes the question: “What is to be done?”
"Exploring one of the most influential methods of contemporary cultural production, Self-Organised takes a broad view on the matter. Artists, curators and critics discuss empirical and theoretical approaches from Europe, Africa and South and North America to how self-organisation today oscillates between the self and the group, self-imposed bureaucratisation and flexibilism, aestheticisation and activism. The contributors identify now as a crucial moment to propose ways forward for parallel initiatives and institutions alike: from de-organisation and waiting, to rupture and coexistence of aesthetics and politics. However, what they all seem to share is a refreshing search for critical platforms of citizenship, harnessing self-determination in the wake of neo-liberal mainstreaming and right-wing populism alike." --> z ov.
Human flourishing depends upon the mental health of the individuals. Throughout history, various cultural traditions have established and practiced diverse strategies to maintain their community members' mental health, treat their mental illness, and enhance their well-being. They range from spiritual disciplines, religious rituals, and philosophical training, to communal activities, educational instructions, and community support. It is noteworthy that aesthetic objects and activities are frequently integrated into these strategies. They include visual arts, music, dance, story-telling, theatre, and occasions and events made special by certain foods, drinks, decorations, clothes, and fragra...
Belgischer Kolonialismus im Kongo, Antisemitismus in Österreich, Turbo-Nationalismus im ehemaligen Jugoslawien – diese drei historischen Stränge von Gewalt und Vernichtung erzwangen und stützten einen Prozess des Vergessens, der bis heute eine Aufarbeitung der durch sie verursachten Genozide verhindert. Heute droht eine unfreiwillige oder ausgeübte Amnesie all das zu zerstören, was bereits in Hinblick auf ein mögliches Zusammenleben erreicht wurde. Der Ausstellungskatalog geht zu diesen traumatischen Ereignissen der Geschichte sowie der jüngsten Vergangenheit mit ihrer zerstörerischen Wirkung auf Gemeinschaften und Völker, Staaten und Territorien zurück und stellen sie einem System von Interventionen gegenüber. Die nach Gräueltaten zurückbleibenden Narben sind zwar oft versteckt und ausgelöscht, lassen sich aber durch künstlerische, wissenschaftliche und politische Reflexionen zurückholen.