Domenico Quaranta: AFK: Texts on Artists, 2011-2016 (2016)

“AFK – an acronym for “away of keyboard” – is an anthology of texts written for catalogues and exhibition brochures along the last five years, featuring twelve texts about eleven artists and an artist duo: Rosa Menkman, Jon Rafman, Gazira Babeli, Martin Kohout, Maurizio Cattelan, Enrico Boccioletti, Constant Dullaart, Jill Magid, Aram Bartholl, Emilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Evan Roth and Addie Wagenknecht. In different ways, these artists experienced the impact of digital means of production and dissemination, they experimented with them, they thought about them, and all this is reflected in their work. As Peter Sunde, the co-founder of the Pirate Bay, they think the internet is real, and they spend a lot of time in this real space of life, communication, love, hate, surveillance, sharing, and copying. Most of the works discussed here are made to be experienced in a brick and mortar space, away of keyboard; but reflect the current way of living, communicating, loving, hating, spying, sharing, copying, on and away of keyboard.”

Publisher Link Editions, Brescia, Dec 2016
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported License
ISBN 9781326892920
180 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (15 MB)

Hito Steyerl: Duty-Free Art (2015) [Spanish/English]

This catalogue contains “a conversation between Hito Steyerl and João Fernandes, curator of the exhibition, an essay by Carles Guerra and Steyerl herself. Steyerl approaches current themes in her work, for instance the impact the proliferation of images and the use of the Internet and technology have on our lives. She uses these issues as a starting point for developing, not just through her video pieces but also through writing and essays, critical work about control, surveillance and militarisation, migration, cultural globalisation, feminism and political imagery, questions she believes have the capacity to create realities.”

Publisher Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2015
ISBN 9788480265300
173 pages

Exhibition
Publisher
WorldCat

PDF, PDF (17 MB)

Decoding the Chinese Internet: A Glossary of Political Slang, 3rd ed (2015)

“China Digital Times maintains a wiki of subversive Chinese Internet language, an essential element of China’s “resistance discourse” which counters state propaganda. This Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon is named after the unofficial mascot of Chinese netizenry, an alpaca whose name sounds nearly the same as a serious profanity. The Lexicon contains hundreds of terms and since 2013 the most time-tested and ubiquitous ones have been compiled into ebook glossaries.

This third edition of Decoding the Chinese Internet includes new coinages and iconic turns of phrase. Organized by broad categories, it guides readers through the raucous world of China’s online resistance discourse. Students of Mandarin will gain insight into word play and learn terms that are key to understanding Chinese Internet language. But no knowledge of Chinese is needed to appreciate the creative leaps netizens make in order to keep talking.”

First published in 2013

Third edition
Introduction by Xiao Qiang and Perry Link
Publisher China Digital Times, June 2015
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License
ISBN 9780989824347
69 pages
HT amy

Commentary: Washington Post (2015), Public Radio International (2015).

Publisher

pay-what-you-want PDF
PDF (5 MB)