After Us: Art—Science—Politics, 1 (2015) [English/Spanish]

“Through essays, pictorials and fiction, After Us hopes to look beyond the horizon, exploring developments in science and technology, new forms and expressions in art, and alternative political thinking. In print and online.”

Contents: Essays by Nora N. Khan on artificial superintelligence, Liam Young on architecture for machines, Nick Srnicek on neoliberalism and aestheticism, Benedict Singleton on modern film archetypes. Interview with Walter Murch by Dave Tompkins. Fiction by Juan Mateos. Art by Timothy Saccenti & Sam Rolfes, Lawrence Lek. Illustrations by Stathis Tsemberlidis, Adam Ferriss, Alex Solman, Patrick Savile.

Publisher Optigram, London, Sep 2015
32 pages

HTML (English, use menu to browse contents)
PDF (English, 10 MB)
HTML (Spanish, expand menu item “translations” to browse contents)

See also Issue 2.

Wilhelm Worringer: Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style (1907–)

“In this text, Worringer identifies two opposing tendencies pervading the history of art from ancient times through the Enlightenment. He claims that in societies experiencing periods of anxiety and intense spirituality, such as those of ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages, artistic production tends toward a flat, crystalline ‘abstraction’, while cultures that are oriented toward science and the physical world, like ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy, are dominated by more naturalistic, embodied styles, which he grouped under the term ’empathy’. As was traditional for art history at the time, Worringer’s book remained firmly engaged with the past, ignoring contemporaneous artistic production. Yet in the wake of its publication, Abstraction and Empathy came to be seen as fundamental for understanding the rise of Expressionism and the role of abstraction in the early twentieth century.”

First published as author’s dissertation entitled Abstraktion und Einfühlung, Heuser, Neuwied, 1907.

English edition
Translated by Michael Bullock
Publisher International University Press, New York, 1953
New edition with an Introduction by Hilton Kramer published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1997
ISBN 1566631777, 9781566631778
144 pages

WorldCat (EN)

Abstraktion und Einfühlung (German, 1907, further editions: 3rd, 1911, 11th, 1921)
Abstraction and Empathy (English, 1953/1997, 9 MB)

More works by Worringer

Étienne Souriau: The Different Modes of Existence (1943–) [FR, DE, EN]

“Exploring the aesthetic depths of the various modes of existence by one of France’s most heralded but forgotten thinkers of existential pluralism.

What relation is there between the existence of a work of art and that of a living being? Between the existence of an atom and that of a value like solidarity? These questions become our own each time a reality is established—whether it is a piece of music, someone we love, or a fictional character—and begins to take on an importance in our lives. Like William James or Gilles Deleuze, Souriau methodically defends the thesis of an existential pluralism. There are indeed different manners of existing and even different degrees or intensities of existence: from pure phenomena to objectivized things, by way of the virtual and the surexistent, to which works of art and the intellect, and even the very fact of morality, bear witness. Existence is polyphonic and, as a result, the world is considerably enriched and enlarged. Beyond all that exists in the ordinary sense of the term, it is necessary to allow for all sorts of virtual and ephemeral states, transitional realms, and barely begun realities, still in the making, all of which constitute so many “inter-worlds.””

Publisher Alcan, Paris, 1943

New edition
Introduction by Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour
Publisher PUF, Paris, 2009
220 pages

English edition
Translated by Erik Beranek and Tim Howles
Introduction by Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour
Publisher Univocal, Minneapolis, MN, 2015
ISBN 9781937561505
240 pages
via wX

Reviews: Raymond A. Sangiolo (Études phil 1945 FR), Frédéric Keck (Le Monde 2009 FR).

Publisher (new ed., FR)
Publisher (DE)
Publisher (EN)

Les différents modes d’existence (French, 1943/2009, 11 MB, added on 2021-3-9)
Die verschiedenen Modi der Existenz (German, trans. Thomas Wäckerle, 2015, PDF)
The Different Modes of Existence (English, trans. Erik Beranek and Tim Howles, 2015, updated on 2021-3-9)