Yates McKee: Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition (2016)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, anarchism, art, art system, black lives matter, commons, contemporary art, debt, direct action, gentrification, housing, new york, occupy movement, precarity, protest, situationists, social movements, spectacle
“The collision of activism and contemporary art, from the Seattle protests to Occupy and beyond
What is the relation of art to the practice of radical politics today? Strike Art explores this question through the historical lens of Occupy, an event that had artists at its core. Precarious, indebted, and radicalized, artists redirected their creativity from servicing the artworld into an expanded field of organizing in order to construct of a new—if internally fraught—political imaginary set off against the common enemy of the 1%. In the process, they called the bluff of a contemporary art system torn between ideals of radical critique, on the one hand, and an increasing proximity to Wall Street on the other—oftentimes directly targeting major art institutions themselves as sites of action.
Tracking the work of groups including MTL, Not an Alternative, the Illuminator, the Rolling Jubilee, and G.U.L.F, Strike Art shows how Occupy ushered in a new era of artistically-oriented direct action that continues to ramify far beyond the initial act of occupation itself into ongoing struggles surrounding labor, debt, and climate justice, concluding with a consideration of the overlaps between such work and the aesthetic practices of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Art after Occupy, McKee suggests, contains great potentials of imagination and action for a renewed left project that are still only beginning to ripen, at once shaking up and taking flight from the art system as we know it.”
Publisher Verso Books, London and New York, Feb 2016
ISBN 9781784781880, 1784781886
296 pages
Reviews: Marc James Léger (Marx & Philosophy, 2016), Philipp Kleinmichel (Radical Philosophy, 2018), Paloma Checa-Gismero (Field, 2016), John Ayscough (Visual Culture in Britain, 2017), Kristin Gecan (Chicago Review, 2016).
Discussion: Gregory Sholette, a.o. (e-flux supercommunity, 2016).
Book launch
EPUB (6 MB)
Comment (0)William Andrews: Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima (2016)
Filed under book | Tags: · art history, counterculture, cultural history, dissent, japan, politics, protest, radicalism, social movements
“Following the March 2011 Tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, the media remarked with surprise on how thousands of demonstrators had flocked to the streets of Tokyo. But mass protest movements are nothing new in Japan. The post-war period experienced years of unrest and violence on both sides of the political spectrum: from demos to riots, strikes, campus occupations, factional infighting, assassinations and even international terrorism.
This is the first comprehensive history in English of political radicalism and counterculture in Japan, as well as of the artistic developments during this turbulent time. It chronicles the major events and movements from 1945 to the new flowering of protests and civil dissent in the wake of Fukushima. Introducing readers to often ignored aspects of Japanese society, it explores the fascinating ideologies and personalities on the Right and the Left, including the student movement, militant groups and communes. While some elements parallel developments in Europe and America, much of Japan’s radical recent past (and present) is unique and offers valuable lessons for understanding the context to the new waves of anti-government protests the nation is currently witnessing.”
Publisher Hurst, London, 2016
ISBN 9781849045797, 1849045798
xxv+356 pages
Reviews: Carl Cassegård (Journal of Japanese Studies, 2018), Winifred Bird (Kyoto Journal, 2018), Sean Ledwith (Counterfire, 2017), Don O’Keefe (Japan Times, 2016).
Book website
Publisher
WorldCat
PDF (3 MB)
Comment (0)Christoph Brunner, Raimund Minichbauer, Kelly Mulvaney, Gerald Raunig (eds.): Technökologien (2018) [German]
Filed under book | Tags: · ecology, environment, media, media archeology, social movements, technology, technopolitics
“Im dividuell-maschinischen Kapitalismus geht Technologie weit über die dichotomen Figuren von Techno-Euphorie (maschinischer Fortschritt in der Hand von Menschen) und Techno-Phobie (Menschen als Instrumente der Maschinen) hinaus. In so unterschiedlichen Feldern wie finanziellen Derivaten und Kryptowährungen, digitalen Schnitten und Data Doubles, biometrischen Filmbildern und sozialen Medien werden Technologien zu Umwelt, Umhüllung, Umgebung.
Mit dem Begriffsvorschlag Technökologien und Beispielen aus der Medienarchäologie der 1990er und 2000er Jahre, vor allem aber anhand der Untersuchung konkreter aktueller Praxen versucht das vorliegende Buch, diesen Verschiebungen gerecht zu werden: In der Mitte der technökologischen Subjektivierung, die nicht selten die Form von Wut, Angst, Hass und Häme annimmt, ergeben sich auch neue Weisen der Affizierung, neue Äußerungsweisen, neue Verhältnissetzungen von Technopolitik und sozialer Bewegung.
Mit Beiträgen von: Christoph Brunner, Marco Deseriis, Katrin M. Kämpf und Christina Rogers, Brigitta Kuster, Stamatia Portanova, Gerald Raunig, Álvaro Ruiz, Raúl Sánchez Cedillo.”
Publisher transversal texts, Vienna, August 2018
Copyleft
ISBN 9783903046214, 3903046213
157 pages