…ment: Journal for Contemporary Culture, Art and Politics, 2: Dénouement (2011)

“From the financial crisis to natural and man-made disasters via the wave of political extremisms, our times are patterned with catastrophes of all kinds. While the contemporary meaning of catastrophe is commonly associated to the idea of disaster and collective trauma its origin mostly refers to a sudden turn, or a reversal of what is expected. Catastrophe would therefore be this shift that allows us to explore spaces that could not be accessed, whilst breaking with the existing or the normative. Issue 2 of …ment explores the dis-ordering nature of catastrophe whilst celebrating the potential of its narratives and imageries.

…ment is a journal for contemporary culture, art and politics published in irregular intervals. Through a multi-disciplinary set of editorial forms, the journal aims to reflect on current societal issues and debates.”

With contributions by Tobias Scholz, Jean-Charles Massera, David Riff, Daniel Bürkner, Jens Meinrenken, Walter Benjamin, Bo Christian Larsson, Heather & Ivan Morison, Gustav Metzger, DOXA. Also included in the journal is an excerpt Walter Benjamin’s Theses on Philosophy of History. The printed journal includes a special edition by Bo Christian Larsson.

Editor-in-chief: Federica Bueti
Associate editors: Benoit Loiseau, Clara Meister
98 pages

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Frances Stonor Saunders: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (1999)

In addition to being short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award upon publication last year, Frances Stonor Saunders’s The Cultural Cold War was met with the kind of attention reserved for books that directly hit a cultural nerve. Impassioned reviews and features in major publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have consistently praised Saunders’s detailed knowledge of the CIA’s covert operations.

The Cultural Cold War presents for the first time shocking evidence of cultural manipulation during the Cold War. This “impressively detailed” (Kirkus Reviews) book draws together newly declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA’s astonishing campaign wherein some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom became instruments of the American government. Those involved included George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Gloria Steinem.

Originally published in UK as Who Paid the Piper? by Granta Publications, 1999
Publisher The New Press, New York, 2000
ISBN 156584596X
509 pages

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Google books

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Krzysztof Wodiczko: Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects, Interviews (1999)

“Krzysztof Wodiczko, one of the most original avant-garde artists of our time, is perhaps best known for the politically charged images he has projected onto buildings and monuments from New York to Warsaw—images of rockets projected onto triumphal arches, the image of handcuffed wrists projected onto a courthouse facade, images of homeless people in bandages and wheelchairs projected onto statues in a park from which they had been evicted. In projects such as the “Homeless Vehicle,” which he designed through discussions with homeless people, Wodiczko has helped to make public space a place where marginalized people can speak, establish their presence, and assert their rights.

Critical Vehicles is the first book in English to collect Wodiczko’s own writings on his projects. Wodiczko has stated that his principal artistic concern is the displacement of traditional notions of community and identity in the face of rapidly expanding technologies and cultural miscommunication. In these writings he addresses such issues as urbanism, homelessness, immigration, alienation, and the plight of refugees. Fusing wit and sophisticated political insight, he offers the artistic means to help heal the damages of uprootedness and other contemporary troubles.”

Publisher MIT Press, 1999
Writing Art series
ISBN 0262731223, 9780262731225
227 pages

Review: Ben Highmore (Art History, 2001).

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