Human Strike and the Art of Creating Freedom

Human Strike and the Art of Creating Freedom
Author: Claire Fontaine
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1635901367

The first English-language publication of writings by the collective artist Claire Fontaine, addressing our complicity with anything that limits our freedom. This anthology presents, in chronological order, all the texts by collective artist Claire Fontaine from 2004 to today. Created in 2004 in Paris by James Thornhill and Fulvia Carnevale, the collective artist Clare Fontaine creates texts that are as as experimental and politically charged as her visual practice. In. these writings, she uses the concept of “human strike” and adopts the radical feminist position that can be found in Tiqqun, a two-issue magazine cofounded by Carnevale. Human strike is a movement that is broader and more radical than any general strike. It addresses our inevitable subjective complicity with everything that limits our freedom and shows how to abandon these self-destructive behaviors through desubjectivization. Human strike, Claire Fontaine writes, is a subjective struggle to separate from the inevitable harm we do to ourselves and others simply by living within postindustrial neoliberalism. Human Strike is the first English-language publication of Claire Fontaine's influential and important theoretical writings.

Human Strike Has Already Begun & Other Writings

Human Strike Has Already Begun & Other Writings
Author: Claire Fontaine
Publisher: Mute Publishing
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2013
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1906496889

The term ‘human strike’ was forged to name a revolt against what is reactionary even – and above all – inside the revolt. It defines a type of strike that involves the whole of life and not only its professional side, that acknowledges exploitation in all the domains and not only at work. The human strike is a movement that could potentially contaminate anyone and that attacks the foundations of life in common; its subject isn’t the proletarian or the factory worker but the ‘whatever singularity’ that everyone is. This movement isn’t there to reveal the exceptionality or the superiority of one group or another, but to unmask the whateverness of everybody as the open secret that social classes hide. Founded in 2004, the Paris-based collective artist Claire Fontaine declares a position as a ‘readymade artist’. Having assumed the name of a popular French brand of notebooks, her practice centers on the production of works in neon, video, sculpture, painting and text. Her neo-conceptual art targets the exchangeability and disintegration of notions of authorship. Her position stems from the awareness of the shared condition of political impotence and the crisis of singularity within contemporary society today.

Libidinal Economy

Libidinal Economy
Author: Jean-Francois Lyotard
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780826477002

Is regarded as the most important response to the philosophies of desire, as expounded by thinkers such as de Sade, Nietzsche, Bataille, Foucault and Deleuze and Guattari. It is a major work not only of philosophy, but of sexual politics, semiotics and literary theory, that signals the passage to postmodern philosophy.

Contemporanea

Contemporanea
Author: Michael Marder
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2024-03-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262378086

A groundbreaking, multidisciplinary collection that rethinks our present moment and anticipates the key concepts that will shape and direct the twenty-first century. Contemporanea is a nascent lexicon for the twenty-first century edited by seasoned philosophers and authors Michael Marder and Giovanbattista Tusa. The collection showcases perspectives from a range of noteworthy thinkers in philosophy, ecology, and cultural studies, as well as artists, from across the globe, including Slavoj Zizek, Timothy Morton, Denise Ferreira Da Silva, and Vandana Shiva, who each describe what they anticipate will be the concepts shaping the trajectory of this century—everything from the world state to the nuclear taboo, automation to Teslaism, plant sexuality to arachnomancy, and ecotrauma to resonances, to name a few. This century, as the editors explain, has to date grounded itself in the debris of the preceding century, whose revolutions and struggles failed to transform our time: post-colonialism, post-fascism, and post-liberalism have morphed into neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and neofascism, often combined in a previously unimaginable mix. And, just as the political developments at the beginning of the twenty-first century revived and reshuffled those of the preceding epoch, so too have philosophical trends sought to breathe fresh life into the stillborn -isms of the past—realism, vitalism, logicism, materialism, empiricism, criticism—adding the adjective “new” and sometimes “radical” before them. To articulate a different future, another language is needed. And, to develop another language, one needs to develop fresh concepts, including the concepts proposed in this collection. Contributors Mieke Bal, Claudia Baracchi, Amanda Boetzkes, Erik Bordeleau, Anita Chari, Emanuele Coccia, Valentina Desideri, Roberto Esposito, Filipe Ferreira, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Claire Fontaine, Graham Harman, Yogi Hale Hendlin, Ranjit Hoskote, Cymene Howe, Daniel Innerarity, Joela Jacobs, Ken Kawashima, Sabu Kohso, Bogna Konior, Brandon LaBelle, Anna Longo, Artemy Magun, Michael Marder, Michael Marder, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh, Timothy Morton, Mycelium, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bahar Noorizadeh, Kelly Oliver, Uriel Orlow, Richard Polt, Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback, Tomás Saraceno, Vandana Shiva, Anton Tarasyuk, Anaïs Tondeur, Giovanbattista Tusa, Sjoerd van Tuinen, Santiago Zabala, Zahi Zalloua, Slavoj Žižek

Dispositif

Dispositif
Author: Greg Bird
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2023-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262544334

A ground-breaking anthology that places dispositifs (“apparatuses”) at the center of contemporary thought. Dispositif is one of the most prevalent yet elusive terms in contemporary thought. This comprehensive anthology brings together formative, seminal, and contemporary texts and visual applications to illuminate how central dispositifs are to contemporary theory. Greg Bird and Giovanbattista Tusa’s selection and placement of critical texts invite readers to explore common themes and genealogies, different interpretations and readings, and their diverse deployments across multiple disciplines and genres by such figures as Karl Marx, Franz Kafka, Judith Butler, Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Simondon, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Jasbir Puar, Donna Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, Tiqqun, Claire Fontaine, and many others. Dispositif: A Cartography is a true toolbox for the development of technological ecology thinking that accounts for situated knowledge. This collection provides coordinates for reorienting oneself in a permanently changing world, offering possible roadmaps for navigating these profoundly uncertain times. More than just a compilation of interventions on the dispositif, this volume acts as a guide for understanding the complex interaction between technology, philosophy, and the languages of the arts and media.

An Introduction to Visual Culture

An Introduction to Visual Culture
Author: Nicholas Mirzoeff
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2023-07-19
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000891585

In the fully rewritten third edition of this classic text, Nicholas Mirzoeff introduces visual culture as visual activism, or activating the visible. In this view, visual culture is a practice: a way of doing, making, and seeing. The 12 new chapters begin with five foundational concepts, including Indigenous ways of seeing, visual activism in the wake of slavery, and unfixing the gaze. The second section outlines three currently successful tactics of visual activism: removal of statues and monuments; restitution of cultural property; and practices of repair and reparations. The final section addresses catastrophe and trauma, from Palestine’s Nakba to the climate disaster and the intersections of plague and war. Each section also includes new, in-depth case studies called "Visualizations," ranging from oil painting to Kongo power figures and the mediated practice of taking a knee. Engaging with questions of racializing, colonialism, and undoing gender throughout, this edition maps the activist turn in the field since 2014 and sets directions for its future expansion. This is a key text in visual culture studies and an essential resource for research and teaching in the field.

White Sight

White Sight
Author: Nicholas Mirzoeff
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2023-02-14
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0262373092

From the author of How to See the World comes a new history of white supremacist ways of seeing—and a strategy for dismantling them. White supremacy is not only perpetuated by laws and police but also by visual culture and distinctive ways of seeing. Nicholas Mirzoeff argues that this form of “white sight” has a history. By understanding that it was not always a common practice, we can devise better ways to dismantle it. Spanning centuries across this wide-ranging text, Mirzoeff connects Renaissance innovations—from the invention of perspective and the erection of Apollo statues as monuments to (white) beauty and power to the rise of racial capitalism dependent on slave labor—with the ever-expanding surveillance technologies of the twenty-first century to show that white sight creates an oppressively racializing world, in which subjects who do not appear as white are under constant threat of violence. Analyzing recent events like the George Floyd protests and the Central Park birdwatching incident, Mirzoeff suggests that we are experiencing a general crisis of white supremacy that presents both opportunities and threats to social justice. If we do not seize this moment to dismantle white sight, then white supremacy might surge back stronger than ever. To that end, he highlights activist interventions to strike the power of the white heteropatriarchal gaze. White Sight is a vital handbook and call to action for anyone who refuses to live under white-dominated systems and is determined to find a just way to see the world.

The Art of Being Human

The Art of Being Human
Author: Michael Wesch
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781724963673

Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. "Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage," Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. "Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. ... It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one's hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a "heroic" profession." What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world's jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology. This 2018 text is a revision of the "first draft edition" from 2017 and includes 7 new chapters.

Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance

Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance
Author: Wen Liu
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2022-01-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9811646597

This book brings together writing from activists and scholars that examine leftist and decolonial forms of resistance that have emerged from Hong Kong’s contemporary era of protests. Practices such as labor unionism, police abolition, land justice struggles, and other radical expressions of self-governance may not explicitly operate under the banners of leftism and decoloniality. Nevertheless, examining them within these frameworks uncovers historical, transnational, and prefigurative sightlines that can help to contextualize and interpret their impact for Hong Kong’s political future. This collection offers insights not only into Hong Kong's local struggles, but their interconnectedness with global movements as the city remains on the frontlines of international politics.