McKenzie Wark: General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty First Century (2017)
Filed under book | Tags: · anthropocene, capitalism, communism, culture, labour, marxism, neoliberalism, philosophy, politics, technology, theory, work
“A guide to the thinkers and ideas that will shape the future
What happened to the public intellectuals that used to challenge and inform us? Who is the Sartre or De Beauvoir of the internet age? General Intellects argues we no longer have such singular figures, but there are, instead, general intellects whose writing could, if read collectively, explain our times. Covering topics such as culture, politics, work, technology, and the Anthropocene, each chapter is a concise account of an individual thinker, providing useful context and connections to the work of the others. McKenzie Wark’s distinctive readings are appreciations, but are nonetheless critical of how neoliberal universities militate against cooperative intellectual work that endeavors to understand and also change the world.”
The thinkers included are Amy Wendling, Kojin Karatani, Paolo Virno, Yann Moulier Boutang, Maurizio Lazzarato, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Angela McRobbie, Paul Gilroy, Slavoj Žižek, Jodi Dean, Chantal Mouffe, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Hiroki Azuma, Paul B. Préciado, Wendy Chun, Alexander Galloway, Timothy Morton, Quentin Meillassoux, Isabelle Stengers, and Donna Haraway.
Publisher Verso, London, 2017
Public Seminar series
ISBN 9781786631909, 1786631903
viii+325 pages
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See also extra chapters on Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Nick Land, Sianne Ngai, Wang Hui, Amitav Ghosh, Yves Citton and Bruno Latour.
Writing and Unwriting (Media) Art History: Erkki Kurenniemi in 2048 (2015)
Filed under book | Tags: · archive, art, media art, memory, music, technology
“Over the past forty years, Finnish artist and technology pioneer Erkki Kurenniemi (1941-2017) was a composer of electronic music, experimental filmmaker, computer animator, roboticist, inventor, and futurologist. Kurenniemi was a hybrid—a scientist-humanist-artist. Relatively unknown outside Nordic countries until his 2012 Documenta 13 exhibition, ”In 2048,” Kurenniemi may at last be achieving international recognition. This book offers an excavation, a critical mapping, and an elaboration of Kurenniemi’s multiplicities.
The contributors describe Kurenniemi’s enthusiastic, and rather obsessive, recording of everyday life and how this archiving was part of his process; his exploratory artistic practice, with productive failure an inherent part of his method; his relationship to scientific and technological developments in media culture; and his work in electronic and digital music, including his development of automated composition systems and his “video-organ,” DIMI-O. A “Visual Archive,” a section of interviews with the artist, and a selection of his original writings (translated and published for the first time) further document Kurenniemi’s achievements. But the book is not just about one artist in his time; it is about emerging media arts, interfaces, and archival fever in creative practices, read through the lens of Kurenniemi.”
Edited by Joasia Krysa and Jussi Parikka
Foreword by Erkki Huhtamo
Publisher MIT Press, 2015
ISBN 9780262029582, 0262029588
xxviii+340 pages
Reviews: Amanda Egbe (Leonardo, 2016), Alessandro Ludovico (Neural, 2016).
PDF (5 MB)
Comment (0)Hans Haacke: Working Conditions: The Writings of Hans Haacke (2016)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, censorship, environment, information, institutional critique, systems art, systems theory, time
“Hans Haacke’s art articulates the interdependence of multiple elements. An artwork is not merely an object but is also its context—the economic, social, and political conditions of the art world and the world at large. Among his best-known works are MoMA-Poll (1970), which polled museumgoers on their opinions about Nelson Rockefeller and the Nixon administration’s Indochina policy; Gallery-Goers’ Birthplace and Residence Profile (1969), which canvassed visitors to the Howard Wise Gallery in Manhattan; and the famously canceled 1971 solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, which was meant to display, among other things, works on two New York real estate empires.
This volume collects writings by Haacke that explain and document his practice. The texts, some of which have never before been published, run from straightforward descriptions to wide-ranging reflections and full-throated polemics. They include correspondence with MoMA and the Guggenheim and a letter refusing to represent the United States at the 1969 São Paulo Biennial; the title piece, “Working Conditions,” which discusses corporate influence on the art world; Haacke’s thinking about “real-time social systems”; and texts written for museum catalogs on various artworks, including GERMANIA, in the German Pavilion of the 1993 Venice Biennial; DER BEVÖLKERUNG (To the Population) of 2000 at the Berlin Reichstag; Mixed Messages, an exhibition of objects from the Victoria and Albert Museum (2001); and Gift Horse, unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2015.”
Edited and with an Introduction by Alexander Alberro
Publisher MIT Press, 2016
Writing Art series
ISBN 9780262034838, 0262034832
lii+290 pages
Review: Greg Lindquist (Brooklyn Rail, 2016), Sophie Cras (Critique d’art, 2016, FR), Chelsea Weathers (CAA Reviews, 2018).
PDF (7 MB, updated on 2023-2-14)
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