Art, Lies and Videotape: Exposing Performance (2003)

A look at key moments in the history of performance art. Featuring pieces by leading practitioners in the field, the art of performance is considered through objects, photography, reconstructions, film and video. Accompanies Tate’s first major exhibition devoted to the history and continuing significance of this art form, held at Tate Liverpool, Winter 2003/2004.

Contributors: RoseLee Goldberg, Tracey Warr, Jean-Paul Martinon, Aaron Williamson, Alice Maude-Roxby, Andew Quick.

Edited by Adrian George
Publisher Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, with Tate Publishing, London, 2003
ISBN 9781854375377, 1854375377
91 pages

Exhibition

PDF (17 MB, updated on 2017-7-11)

James V. Wertsch: Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind (1985)

In a book of intellectual breadth, James Wertsch not only offers a synthesis and critique of all Vygotsky’s major ideas, but also presents a program for using Vygotskian theory as a guide to contemporary research in the social sciences and humanities. He draws extensively on all Vygotsky’s works, both in Russian and in English, as well as on his own studies in the Soviet Union with colleagues and students of Vygotsky.

Vygotsky’s writings are an enormously rich source of ideas for those who seek an account of the mind as it relates to the social and physical world. Wertsch explores three central themes that run through Vygotsky’s work: his insistence on using genetic, or developmental, analysis; his claim that higher mental functioning in the individual has social origins; and his beliefs about the role of tools and signs in human social and psychological activity Wertsch demonstrates how the notion of semiotic mediation is essential to understanding Vygotsky’s unique contribution to the study of human consciousness.

In the last four chapters Wertsch extends Vygotsky’s claims in light of recent research in linguistics, semiotics, and literary theory. The focus on semiotic phenomena, especially human language, enables him to integrate findings from the wide variety of disciplines with which Vygotsky was concerned Wertsch shows how Vygotsky’s approach provides a principled way to link the various strands of human science that seem more isolated than ever today.

Publisher Harvard University Press, 1985
ISBN 0674943511, 9780674943513
Length 262 pages

More info (publisher)
More info (google books)

PDF

Adam Haupt: Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion (2008)

Stealing Empire poses the question, “What possibilities for agency exist in the age of corporate globalisation?” Using the work of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt as a point of entry, Adam Haupt delves into varied terrain to locate answers in this ground-breaking inquiry. He explores arguments about copyright via peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms such as Napster, free speech struggles, debates about access to information and open content licenses, and develops a politically incisive analysis of counterdiscourses produced by South African hip-hop artists. From ‘empire stealing’ through their commodification of countercultures to the ‘stealing empire’ activities of file-sharers, culture jammers and hip-hop activists, this book tells the story of people defining themselves as active, creative agents in a consumerist society.

Stealing Empire is vital reading for law, media and cultural studies scholars who want to make sense of the ways in which legal and communication strategies are employed to secure hegemony.

Publisher Human Sciences Research Council, 2008
ISBN 0796922098, 9780796922090
Length 272 pages

More info (publisher)
More info (author)
More info (google books)

PDF (from publisher)
Download podcast (from publisher)