Matthew Fuller, Eyal Weizman: Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth (2021)

“A new field of counterinvestigation in journalism, human rights, art and law

Today, artists are engaged in investigation. They probe corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes and technological domination. At the same time, areas not usually thought of as artistic make powerful use of aesthetics. Journalists and legal professionals pore over opensource videos and satellite imagery to undertake visual investigations. This combination of diverse fields is what the authors call “investigative aesthetics”: the mobilisation of sensibilities associated with art, architecture and other such practices in order to speak truth to power.

Investigative Aesthetics draws on theories of knowledge, ecology and technology; evaluates the methods of citizen counter-forensics, micro-history and art; and examines radical practices such as those of WikiLeaks, Bellingcat, and Forensic Architecture. These new practices take place in the studio and the laboratory, the courtroom and the gallery, online and in the streets, as they strive towards the construction of a new common sense.

Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman have here provided an inspiring introduction to a new field that will change how we understand and confront power today.

To Nour Abuzaid for your brilliance, perseverance, and unshaken belief in the liberation of Palestine.”

Publisher Verso Books, London, August 2021
ISBN 9781788739085, 1788739086
259 pages

Review: Chris Hayes (Tribune, 2021).

Publisher
WorldCat

EPUB (updated on 2022-11-21)

Unbag, 1-4 (2017-2019)

“unbag is a semi-annual magazine that promotes critical engagement with contemporary art and politics. Commissioning artists, writers, and thinkers who work outside of mainstream discourses, unbag functions as a space to explore ideas through discussion and exchange.”

Edited by American Artist (1), Aaron Cooper (1-3), Andy Wentz (1), Charlie Markbreiter (2), Natalia Tuero Germán (2-3), and Mylo Mendez (3)
Publisher unbag, New York, 2017-2019
ISSN 2572-2786
c.98 pages per issue

Issue 1: Metis (May 2017, HTML)
Issue 2: End (Jan 2018, HTML)
Issue 3: Reverie (Sep 2018, HTML)
Issue 4: In Tension (Sep 2019, HTML, added on 2020-6-8)

State Machines: Reflections and Actions at the Edge of Digital Citizenship, Finance, and Art (2019)

“Today, we live in a world where every time we turn on our smartphones, we are inextricably tied by data, laws and flowing bytes to different countries. A world in which personal expressions are framed and mediated by digital platforms, and where new kinds of currencies, financial exchange and even labor bypass corporations and governments. Simultaneously, the same technologies increase governmental powers of surveillance, allow corporations to extract ever more complex working arrangements and do little to slow the construction of actual walls along actual borders. On the one hand, the agency of individuals and groups is starting to approach that of nation states; on the other, our mobility and hard-won rights are under threat. What tools do we need to understand this world, and how can art assist in envisioning and enacting other possible futures?”

Contributors: James Bridle, Max Dovey, Marc Garrett, Valeria Graziano, Max Haiven, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Francis Hunger, Helen Kaplinsky, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Rob Myers, Emily van der Nagel, Rachel O’Dwyer, Lídia Pereira, Rebecca L. Stein, Cassie Thornton, Paul Vanouse, Patricia de Vries, Krystian Woznicki.

Edited by Yiannis Colakides, Marc Garrett, and Inte Gloerich
Publisher Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2019
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License
ISBN 9789492302335
260 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (59 MB, updated on 2022-11-14)
EPUB (39 MB)