Alexander Kluge: Raw Materials for the Imagination (2012)

“Alexander Kluge is best known as a founding member of the New German Cinema. His work, however, spans a diverse range of fields and, over the last fifty years, he has been active as a filmmaker, writer and television producer. This book – the first of its kind in English – comprises a wide selection of texts, including articles and stories by Kluge, television transcripts, critical essays by renowned international scholars, and interviews with Kluge himself. It will be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the fields of film, television, and literary studies, as well as those interested in exploring the intersections between art, politics, and social change.”

Edited by Tara Forrest
Publisher Amsterdam University Press, 2012
Film Culture in Transition series
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License
ISBN 9089642722, 9789089642721
440 pages

Publisher
OAPEN

PDF (15 MB)

Claire Bishop: Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (2012/2022)

“Since the 1990s, critics and curators have broadly accepted the notion that participatory art is the ultimate political art: that by encouraging an audience to take part an artist can promote new emancipatory social relations. Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson.

Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as “social practice.” Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Paweł Althamer and Paul Chan.

Since her controversial essay in Artforum in 2006, Claire Bishop has been one of the few to challenge the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art. In Artificial Hells, she not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims made for these projects, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism.”

Publisher Verso Books, London, 2012
ISBN 1844676900, 9781844676903
390 pages

Reviews: Josephine Berry Slater (Mute, 2012), Mechtild Widrich (caa.reviews, 2013), Marcus Verhagen (New Left Review, 2014), Kenn Watt (Drama Review, 2014), Kim Charnley (Art Journal, 2014), Joseph Henry (New Inquiry, 2012), Jaenine Parkinson (Vague Terrain, 2011), Ryan Wong (Hyperallergic, 2012), Alexander Provan (NY Observer, 2012), Leah Lovett (Dark Matter, 2013), David M. Bell (Political Studies Rev, 2017), Corinne Segal (Boston Review, 2012), Christine Korte (Public, 2013), Jennie Klein (PAJ, 2015).

Author
Publisher

PDF (7 MB, updated on 2019-3-18)
PDF (new ed., 2022, 38 MB, added on 2025-7-23)

Hakim Bey: Immediatism (1992/1994)

“In this collection of essays, the insurrectionist theoretician Hakim Bey expounds upon his ideas concerning radical social reorganization and the liberation of desire. Immediatism is another lyrical romp through intellectual corridors of spirituality and politics originally set forth in his groundbreaking book, TAZ.”

First published as Radio Sermonettes by Libertarian Book Club, New York, 1992

Graphics by Freddie Baer
Publisher AK Press, Edinburgh/San Francisco, 1994
ISBN 1873176422, 9781873176429
Anti-copyright, the book may be freely pirated and quoted
59 pages

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF