Third Text, 153: Actually Existing Artworlds of Socialism (2018)

“The tensions between actual and ideal versions of socialism elucidated by East German theorist Rudolf Bahro in 1977 are taken as a starting point for reconsidering East European art from the radical effervescence of the 1960s to the post-utopian twilight of the late 1970s. The special issue is premised on the concept that artistic life in Eastern Europe was profoundly shaped by the structures, conventions and workings of the overarching system, with artists and critics compelled to negotiate its productive contradictions. It examines the quotidian functioning of art scenes across the region that entailed the drawing up of tacit compromises and maintenance of calculated ambiguities in relations between party authorities and artists. Ultimately it was the latent and unrealised promise of actually existing socialism as much as its demonstrative failings that marked a crucial difference in the attitude of East European artists to the utopian reverberations of the era.”

With texts by Maja Fowkes & Reuben Fowkes, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Tomasz Załuski, Zsuzsa László, Daniel Grúň, Candice M Hamelin, Hana Buddeus, Alina Șerban, Raino Isto, Sonja Simonyi, Marko Ilić, and Armin Medosch.

Edited by Reuben Fowkes
Publisher Routledge, July 2018
ISSN 0952-8822
194 pages

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Culture Machine, 18: The Nature of Data Centers (2019)

“This special issue of Culture Machine brings together scholars from a broad range of disciplines such as anthropology, architecture, media and communication studies, and fine arts, who have engaged with data and cloud infrastructures in their academic or artistic work. Taking data centers as technological apparatus as a starting point, this issue aims to discuss the cloud’s philosophical, political, social, and environmental impacts and maps the diverse sociotechnical assemblages which emerge in the course of cloud infrastructuring processes. How do the infrastructures of the cloud integrate into local political contexts and industrial landscapes? How do the cloud’s technologies relate to the emergence of specific forms of subjectivity, sociality, and urbanity? How can the barely visible and secret industrial spaces of the cloud be made visible and opened up for public engagement? And what does the study of data centers tell us about our current social moment?”

Contributions by Adam Fish and Bradley L. Garrett, Alix Johnson, Anthony M Levenda and Dillon Mahmoudi, Vicki Mayer, Matt Parker, Anne Pasek, A.R.E Taylor, Julia Velkova, Asta Vonderau, Sean RM Willett.

Edited by Mél Hogan and Asta Vonderau
Publisher Open Humanities Press, March 2019
Open access

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FIELD, 12/13: Art, Anti-Globalism, and the Neo-Authoritarian Turn (2019)

This special issue of FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism focusses on “new forms of cultural and artistic activism that have emerged in response to the global rise of right wing populist and authoritarian forms of government. It features over thirty essays by leading artists, activists, historians, critics and curators who share a commitment to freedom of expression, economic equality, environmental justice, individual identity and mobility, and the expansion of democratic processes.”

Edited by Greg Sholette
Publisher Department of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, Winter/Spring 2019
Open access

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