Blake Stimson, Gregory Sholette (eds.): Collectivism after Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945 (2007)

“The desire to speak in a collective voice has long fueled social imagination and artistic production. Prior to the Second World War, artists understood collectivization as an expression of the promise or failure of industrial and political modernity envisioned as a mass phenomenon. After the war, artists moved beyond the old ideal of progress by tying the radicalism of their political dreams to the free play of differences.

Organized around a series of case studies spanning the globe from Europe, Japan, and the United States to Africa, Cuba, and Mexico, Collectivism after Modernism covers such renowned collectives as the Guerrilla Girls and the Yes Men, as well as lesser-known groups. Contributors explore the ways in which collectives function within cultural norms, social conventions, and corporate or state-sanctioned art. They examine the impact of new technologies on artistic practice, the emergence of networked group identity, and the common characteristic of collective production to blur the typical separations between artists, activists, service workers, and communities in need.

Together, these essays demonstrate that collectivism survives as an influential and increasingly visible artistic practice despite the art world’s star system of individuality. Collectivism after Modernism provides the historical understanding necessary for thinking through postmodern collective practice, now and into the future.”

Contributors: Irina Aristarkhova, Jesse Drew, Okwui Enwezor, Rubén Gallo, Chris Gilbert, Brian Holmes, Alan Moore, Jelena Stojanovi´c, Reiko Tomii, Rachel Weiss.

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2007
ISBN 0816644624, 9780816644629
xviii+312 pages

Key terms: Art & Language, collectivism, unitary urbanism, Akasegawa Genpei, video art, detournement, conceptual art, Asger Jorn, Fluxus, ABTV, Ernesto Leal, Situationist International, Guy Debord, Havana, Glexis Novoa, cold war, Art Workers Coalition, avant-garde, Cuba, Gutai

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Charlie Gere: Art, Time, and Technology (2006)

Art, Time and Technology examines the role of art in an age of ‘real time’ information systems and instantaneous communication. The increasing speed of technology and of technological development since the early nineteenth century has resulted in cultural anxiety. Humankind now appears to be an ever-smaller component of dauntingly complex technological systems, operating at speeds beyond human control or even perception. This perceived change forces us to rethink our understanding of key concepts such as time, history and art. Art, Time and Technology explores how the practice of art – in particular of avant-garde art – keeps our relation to time, history and even our own humanity open. Examining key moments in the history of both technology and art from the beginnings of industrialization to today, Charlie Gere explores both the making and purpose of art, and how much further it can travel from the human body.

Published by Berg, 2006
ISBN 1845201353, 9781845201357
195 pages

Key terms: net.art, Staiti, avant-garde, conceptual art, Bernard Stiegler, real-time computing, Lyotard, John McHale, Suprematism, Jacques Derrida, Suprematist, Hans Haacke, mail art, DEW Line, Vincent Van Gogh, Roy Ascott, Buckminster Fuller, Douglas Huebler, Metal Machine Music

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Geert Lovink: Zero Comments: Kernels of Critical Internet Culture (2007)

In Zero Comments Geert Lovink upgrades worn-out concepts and inquires the latest Web 2.0 hype around blogs, wikis and social network sites. In this third volume of his studies into critical Internet culture, Lovink develops a ‘general theory of blogging.’ Unlike most publications he is not focusing on the dynamics between bloggers and the mainstream news media. Instead of celebrating ‘citizen journalism’ blogs are analyzed in their ‘nihilist impulse’ to empty out established meaning structures. Blogs bring on decay of the 20th century broadcast media, and are proud of their in-crowd aspect in which linking, tagging and ranking have become the main drivers. The book also deals with the silent globalization of the Net in which no longer the West, but countries like India, China and Brazil are becoming main players in new media culture. It is not only the latest that Internet enthusiasts should focus on. Zero Comments upgrades concepts such as global Internet time, tactical media, the crisis of new media arts and the problematic relationship between architecture and the Net. The book ends with speculative notions on concepts such as organized networks, free cooperation and distributed aesthetics.

Publisher Routledge, 2007
ISBN 0415973155, 9780415973151
312 pages

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