Jens Eder, Charlotte Klonk (eds.): Image Operations: Visual Media and Political Conflict (2016)

“Still and moving images are crucial factors in contemporary political conflicts. They not only have representational, expressive or illustrative functions, but also augment and create significant events. Beyond altering states of mind, they affect bodies and often life or death is at stake. Various forms of image operations are currently performed in the contexts of war, insurgency and activism. Photographs, videos, interactive simulations and other kinds of images steer drones to their targets, train soldiers, terrorise the public, celebrate protest icons, uncover injustices, or call for help. They are often parts of complex agential networks and move across different media and cultural environments. This book is a pioneering interdisciplinary study of the role and function of images in political life. Balancing theoretical reflections with in-depth case studies, it brings together renowned scholars and activists from different fields to offer a multifaceted critical perspective on a crucial aspect of contemporary visual culture.”

Publisher Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2016
ISBN 9781526107213, 152610721X
xv+232+[24] pages

Review: Zoya Brumberg (Journal of Visual Culture, 2018).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (21 MB)

Proxy Politics: Power and Subversion in a Networked Age (2017)

“The proxy, a decoy or surrogate, is today often used to designate a computer server acting as an intermediary for requests from clients. Originating in the Latin procurator, an agent representing others in a court of law, proxies are now emblematic of a post-democratic political age, one increasingly populated by bot militias, puppet states, and communication relays. Thus, the proxy works as a dialectical figure that is woven into the fabric of networks, where action and stance seem to be masked, calculated and remote-controlled.

This publication looks at proxy-politics on both a micro and a macro level, exploring proxies as objects, as well as networks as objects. What is the relation between the molecular and the planetary? How to fathom the computational regime? Yet, whilst being a manifestation of the networked age, thinking like a proxy offers loopholes and strategies for survival within it.

The Research Center for Proxy Politics (RCPP) explores and reflects upon the nature of medial networks and their actors. Between September 2014 and August 2017, the center hosted workshops, lectures and events at the Universität der Künste, Berlin, under the auspices of Hito Steyerl’s Lens-based class.”

Contributors: Tom McCarthy, Kodwo Eshun, Goldin+Senneby, Brian Holmes, Nick Houde, Jonathan Jung, Laura Katzauer, Boaz Levin, Mikk Madisson, Doreen Mende, Sondra Perry, Oleksiy Radynski, Robert Rapoport, Hito Steyerl, thricedotted, Vera Tollmann, Miloš Trakilović.

Edited by Research Center for Proxy Politics (Vera Tollmann and Boaz Levin)
Publisher Archive Books, Berlin, October 2017
ISBN 3943620719, 9783943620719
256 pages
via catsoup

Editor
Publisher (archived)
WorldCat

PDF (11 MB)

Rosa Menkman: Beyond Resolution (2020)

“I opened the institutions of Resolution Disputes [i.R.D.] in March 2015, hosted by Transfer Gallery in New York. In September 2017, its follow-up Behind White Shadows opened, also at Transfer. Finally, in 2020 Shadow Knowledge found its way to SJSU Galleries in San José. At the heart of all three solo shows is my research into resolutions and together these exhibitions form a triptych framework for this publication: Beyond Resolution.

This little book also represents a journey spanning over 5 years, starting on a not so fine Saturday morning in early January 2015, when I signed the contract for a research fellowship in Amsterdam, to write a book about Resolution Studies.” (from Introduction)

Publisher i.R.D., 2020
ISBN 9789082827309
Copy-It-Right
[108] pages
via author

Project website

PDF (15 MB)