Christina Dunbar-Hester: Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures (2020)

21 December 2021, dusan

“A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity in software and hackerspace communities.

Hacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation. Yet surprisingly few women participate in it: rates of involvement by technologically skilled women are drastically lower in hacking communities than in industry and academia. Hacking Diversity investigates the activists engaged in free and open-source software to understand why, despite their efforts, they fail to achieve the diversity that their ideals support.

Christina Dunbar-Hester shows that within this well-meaning volunteer world, beyond the sway of human resource departments and equal opportunity legislation, members of underrepresented groups face unique challenges. She brings together more than five years of firsthand research: attending software conferences and training events, working on message boards and listservs, and frequenting North American hackerspaces. She explores who participates in voluntaristic technology cultures, to what ends, and with what consequences. Digging deep into the fundamental assumptions underpinning STEM-oriented societies, Dunbar-Hester demonstrates that while the preferred solutions of tech enthusiasts—their “hacks” of projects and cultures—can ameliorate some of the “bugs” within their own communities, these methods come up short for issues of unequal social and economic power. Distributing “diversity” in technical production is not equal to generating justice.

Hacking Diversity reframes questions of diversity advocacy to consider what interventions might appropriately broaden inclusion and participation in the hacking world and beyond.”

Publisher Princeton University Press, 2020
Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology series
ISBN 9780691182070, 0691182078
xi+271 pages

Reviews: Jenna P. Carpenter (Tech & Society, 2021), Rebecca Ortenberg (Lady Science, 2020), Samantha Shorey (International Journal of Communication, 2020).

Publisher
WorldCat

EPUB (updated on 2022-8-29)
PDF (added on 2022-12-12)

Nato Thompson (ed.): Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011 (2012)

18 March 2020, dusan

“Over the past twenty years, an abundance of art forms have emerged that use aesthetics to affect social dynamics. These works are often produced by collectives or come out of a community context; they emphasize participation, dialogue, and action, and appear in situations ranging from theater to activism to urban planning to visual art to health care. Engaged with the texture of living, these art works often blur the line between art and life. This book offers the first global portrait of a complex and exciting mode of cultural production—one that has virtually redefined contemporary art practice.

Living as Form grew out of a major exhibition at Creative Time in New York City. Like the exhibition, the book is a landmark survey of more than 100 projects selected by a thirty-person curatorial advisory team; each project is documented by a selection of color images. The artists include the Danish collective Superflex, who empower communities to challenge corporate interest; Turner Prize nominee Jeremy Deller, creator of socially and politically charged performance works; Women on Waves, who provide abortion services and information to women in regions where the procedure is illegal; and Santiágo Cirugeda, an architect who builds temporary structures to solve housing problems.

Living as Form contains commissioned essays from noted critics and theorists who look at this phenomenon from a global perspective and broaden the range of what constitutes this form.”

Contributing authors: Claire Bishop, Carol Becker, Teddy Cruz, Brian Holmes, Shannon Jackson, Maria Lind, Anne Pasternak, Nato Thompson.

Publisher Creative Time, New York, and MIT Press, 2012
ISBN 9780262017343, 0262017342
259 pages

Reviews: Tom Snow (review31, n.d.), Wendy Vogel (Brooklyn Rail, 2012), Jennie Klein (PAJ, 2015), Kim Yasuda (Public Art Dialogue, 2013), Régine Debatty (We Make Money Not Art, 2012), Mark Gardner (Urban Design Review, 2012), Michael DiRisio (Public Journal, 2014), Danielle Child (Reviews in Culture, 2012), Andreas Hudelist (Theater Forschung, 2014).
Exh. reviews: Jens Hoffmann (Frieze, 2012), Ben Davis (International Socialist Review, 2012), Rachel Daniell (emisferica, 2012).

Project website, incl. Social Practice archive (300+ projects)
Exhibition
Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (19 MB)
Internet Archive (added on 2023-7-7)

Skuteczność sztuki (2014) [Polish]

18 January 2020, dusan

“Publikacja dotyczy jednego z najważniejszych problemów współczesnej sztuki – jej możliwej i oczekiwanej skuteczności. W obszernym tomie pod redakcją Tomasza Załuskiego, w ponad dwudziestu esejach i wywiadach temat ten zostaje przeanalizowany przez teoretyków i praktyków sztuki współczesnej. Dzięki tej wielości perspektyw publikacja jest pełną aktualnych odniesień prezentacją różnych poglądów, doświadczeń i postaw.

Pojęcie „skuteczności” jest przez autorów ujęte w krytyczny sposób i szeroko sproblematyzowane. Eseje i wywiady zostały pogrupowane wokół sześciu zagadnień: Jak sztuka odnosi się do współczesnych zjawisk ekonomicznych i rodzajów pracy oraz produkcji? Czy dizajn może kształtować zachowania i relacje społeczne? Kolejne części stawiają pytania o kwestie kolektywności, partycypacji i politycznego zaangażowania artystów, w tym o związki sztuki i miejskiego aktywizmu. Wreszcie podjęte zostają problemy dotyczącego tego, czy sztuka może być narzędziem społecznej zmiany oraz czy istnieje dziś miejsce dla sojuszu sztuki i nauki?

Publikacja jest podsumowaniem trzyletniej dyskusji prowadzonej w Muzeum Sztuki na temat zagadnienia skuteczności sztuki.”

Contributors: Edwin Bendyk, Łukasz Białkowski, Roman Dziadkiewicz, Adam Dzidowski, Joanna Erbel, Mikołaj Iwański, Aleksandra Jach, Rafał Jakubowicz, Małgorzata Ludwisiak, Ewa Majewska, Wojtek Moćko, Zbigniew Oksiuta, Adam Ostolski, Marcin Polak, Mikołaj Ratajczak, Monika Rosińska, Aneta Rostkowska, Jan Sowa, Joanna Warsza, Tomasz Załuski, Marcin Zaród, Agnieszka Ziętek.

Edited by Tadeusz Załuski
Publisher Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, Łódź, 2014
ISBN 9788363820190, 8363820199
579 pages

Review: Szum (2015, PL).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF, PDF (7 MB)