Interface, 12(1): Organizing amidst COVID-19: Sharing Stories of Struggle (2020)

“The world is on fire, with both fever and flame. After a few months of lockdown, things are erupting in new ways. The movement for Black Lives is demanding an end to anti-Black racism and conversations about abolishing the police are on late night television. In North America, a new world appears to be dawning, one that didn’t seem possible even a month ago. Meanwhile, in the new centre of global capitalism, the long-standing Hong Kong movement seems to be on the point of succumbing to a new wave of repression.

Around the world, movements are strategizing about how to ensure that no one is left behind. In April we put out a call for short pieces on this theme. We could see that the imminent arrival of the virus had generated many different struggles – initially pressure to force some states to take action in the first place, resistance to cuts and demanding benefits. Then came struggles characterized by mutual aid, efforts to protect essential workers, and the most vulnerable, such as the homeless, prisoners, the elderly and the undocumented.

This issue contains pieces originally written for our rolling coverage of movements in the virus, as well as a few pieces written especially for this special issue. They represent reflective activists and engaged researchers trying to grasp what their movements were doing, and what they should do, in an unprecedented situation.

The contributions reflect on movements in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Haiti, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, the UK, the US and globally and are written in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.” (from Editorial)

Edited by Sutapa Chattopadhyay, Lesley Wood, and Laurence Cox
Publisher Interface, July 2020
ISSN 2009-2431
683 pages

Publisher

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Alison Knowles: Journal of the Identical Lunch (1971)

“A journalistic account of a series of performances of a single piece. The book begins with a description of ‘the identical lunch’ which consists primarily of ‘a tunafish sandwich on wheat toast with lettuce and butter, no mayo, and a large glass of buttermilk or a cup of soup.’ These were eaten ‘many days of each week at the same place and at about the same time.’ After this description, and a reproduction of a restaurant check for the same (total, with tax, $1.68, for two) there follows a series of accounts of the performance of this ‘identical lunch’ by Susan Hartung, John Giorno, Dick Higgins, Vernon Hinkle, and others. Many of these accounts have dates, some identify the place and circumstances and difficulties or rewards of the performance. The accounts are recorded in different formats – perhaps by the original performers – using typewriter, typesetting, handwriting, and so forth. The book collects records of lunches which both are and are not identical.” (Source)

First published in The Outsider, nos. 1-5.

Publisher Nova Broadcast Press, San Francisco, 1971
[68] pages
via Artists’ Books Online

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Continent. 5(2): The Technosphere, Now (2016)

“The “technosphere” is geologist Peter Haff’s term for the planetary-scale networks of transport, information, energy and media operating at a scale and functional efficacy that we can now compare with geological and climatic forces—the soils and rocks of the lithosphere, the waters of the hydrosphere or the winds of the atmosphere. Its emergence as a thematic is driven by the same witnessing of intertwining natural environments, vast socio-technical forces, and increasingly diverse technological species and spaces that has precipitated discussions of the Anthropocene.

[…] The Technosphere project at the HKW in Berlin (2015-18) began with an initial gathering in Autumn 2015. The first occasion for the ongoing collaboration between continent. and HKW was the latter’s hosting of The Technosphere, Now event in October, 2015 in Berlin. Editors from continent. came from various corners of the globe, invited to immerse themselves into and extrapolate from the talks, discussions, presentations and demonstrations held there. Interview-discussions held with the likewise international set of researchers, theorists, artists and scientists at this event precipitated an online special issue of continent. for April 2016, featuring articles titled by the names of our interviewees.”

Features interviews with Arno Rosemarin, Birgit Schneider, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Donald MacKenzie, Erich Hörl, Jennifer Gabrys, Lino Camprubí, Lucy A. Suchman, Mark Hansen, Masahiro Terada, Mushon Zer-Aviv, Oliver Sann, Peter K. Haff, S. Løchlann Jain, and Scott Gabriel Knowles.

Edited by Nina Jäger, Paul Boshears, Bernhard Garnicnig, Jamie Allen, Lital Khaikin, Katrin Klingan, Anna Sophie Luhn, Christoph Rosol, and Nick Hood
Publisher continent., Apr 2016
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
ISSN 2159-9920

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