Radical Education Collective (eds.): New Public Spaces: Dissensual Political and Artistic Practices in the Post-Yugoslav Context (2009)

New public spaces: dissensual political and aesthetical practices in the post-Yugoslav context is a reader edited by a Radical Education Collective from Ljubljana (Gal Kirn, Gasper Kralj and Bojana Piskur). It drew its inspiration from encounters and conversations with activists, artists, critical thinkers, curators, militant researchers and writers from Belgrade, Helsinki, Istanbul, Ljubljana, London, Pristina and Prizren in April and May 2008 at the social centre ROG and the AKC Metelkova mesto in Ljubljana. Those encounters challenged not only the distinction between ‘serious’ discussions and ‘informal’ debates – that instantly reproduce linear time and hierarchical space – but also our mutual ability to listen, talk and share experiences (instead of consume information). Contributions were subsequently elaborated into the reader, which consists of two parts. In the first part, engaged collectives reflect on the organisation of different political issues: from anti-capitalist and student struggles, to immigrant workers and the re-appropriation of public spaces in the region. The second part focuses on specific art collectives from Kosovo and Ljubljana, which are occupied with the question of space: why was space so important when rethinking the relation between art and politics, and also what can one do with the space? Here, a set of political practices enabled art collective to undermine the presupposed liberal border between public and private. The reader concludes with a presentation of some art projects that intervened and articulated spatial and visual transformations in the post-Yugoslav context.

Authors and contributors: Barbara Beznec, Sezgin Boynik, Ibrahim Ćurić, Cornelia Durka, Janna Graham, Minna Henriksson, Gal Kirn, Gašper Kralj, Andreja Kulunčić, Andrej Kurnik, Polona Mozetič, Said Mujić, Osman Pezić, Bojana Piškur, Marjetica Potrč, Tjaša Pureber, Radical Education Collective, TEMP, Darij Zadnikar, Antonios Vradis

Edited and compiled by: Gal Kirn, Gašper Kralj, Bojana Piškur
Published by Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (NL), Modern Galerija, Ljubljana / Museum of Modern Art, July 2009
ISBN 978–90–72076–87–8

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Glen Creeber, Royston Martin (eds.): Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media (2008)

From Facebook to the iPhone, from YouTube to Wikipedia, from Grand Theft Auto to Second Life – this book explores new media?s most important issues and debates in an accessible and engaging text for newcomers to the field.

With technological change continuing to unfold at an incredible rate, Digital Cultures rounds-up major events in the media?s recent past to help develop a clear understanding of the theoretical and practical debates that surround this emerging discipline. It addresses issues such as:

* What is new media?
* How is new media changing our lives?
* Is new media having a positive or negative effect on culture and human communication?

Each chapter contains case studies which provide an interesting and lively balance between the well-trodden and the newly emerging themes in the field.

Topics covered include digital television, digital cinema, gaming, digital democracy, mobile phones, the World Wide Web, digital news, online social networking, music and multimedia, virtual communities and the digital divide.

Digital Cultures is an essential introductory guide for all media and communication studies students, as well as those with a general interest in new media and its impact on the world around us.

Publisher Open University Press, 2008
ISBN 0335221971, 9780335221974
Length 205 pages

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Richard Burt (ed.): The Administration of Aesthetics. Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere (1994)

Calls attention to the crucial difficulties inherent in censorship when it is used as a tool for cultural criticism.

The “new” censorship of the arts, some cultural critics say, is just one more item on the “new” Right’s agenda, and is part and parcel of attempts to regulate sexuality, curtail female reproductive rights, deny civil rights to gays and lesbians, and privatize public institutions. Although they do not contest this assessment, the writers gathered here expose crucial difficulties in using censorship, old and new, as a tool for cultural criticism.

Focusing on historical moments ranging from early modern Europe to the postmodern United States, and covering a variety of media from books and paintings to film and photography, their essays seek a deeper understanding of what “censorship,” “criticism,” and the “public sphere” really mean.

Getting rid of the censor, the contributors suggest, does not eliminate the problem of censorship. In varied but complementary ways, they view censorship as something more than a negative, unified institutional practice used to repress certain discourses. Instead, the authors contend that censorship actually legitimates discourses-not only by allowing them to circulate but by staging their circulation as performances through which “good” and “bad” discourses are differentiated and opposed.

These essays move discussions of censorship out of the present discourse of diversity into what might be called a discourse of legitimation. In doing so, they open up the possibility of realignments between those who are disenchanted with both stereotypical right-wing criticisms of political critics and aesthetics and stereotypical left-wing defenses.

Publisher U of Minnesota Press, 1994
ISBN 0816623678, 9780816623679
Length 381 pages

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