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Transdisciplinary approaches to the notions of “the contemporary” and “contemporaneity” Futures of the Contemporary explores different notions and manifestations of “the contemporary” in music, visual arts, art theory, and philosophy. In particular, the authors in this collection of essays scrutinise the role of artistic research in critical and creative expressions of contemporaneity. When distinguished from “the contemporaneous” of a given historical time, “the contemporary” becomes a crucial concept, promoting or excluding objects and practices according to their ability to diagnose previously unnoticed aspects of the present. In this sense, the contemporary gains a critical function, involving particular modes of relating to history and one’s own time. Written by major experts from fields such as music performance, composition, art theory, visual arts, art history, critical studies, and philosophy, this book offers challenging perspectives on contemporary art practices, the temporality of artistic works and phenomena, and new modes of problematising the production of art and its public apprehension. Contributors: Andrew Prior (University of Plymouth), Babette Babich (Fordham University), Geoff Cox (Fine Art at Plymouth University / Aarhus University), Heiner Goebbels (Justus Liebig University), Jacob Lund (Aarhus University), Michael Schwab (Orpheus Institute), Pal Capdevila (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Paulo de Assis (Orpheus Institute), Peter Osborne (Kingston University London), Ryan Nolan (University of Plymouth), Zsuzsa Baross (Trent University)
Drawing Futures brings together international designers and artists for speculations in contemporary drawing for art and architecture.Despite numerous developments in technological manufacture and computational design that provide new grounds for designers, the act of drawing still plays a central role as a vehicle for speculation. There is a rich and long history of drawing tied to innovations in technology as well as to revolutions in our philosophical understanding of the world. In reflection of a society now underpinned by computational networks and interfaces allowing hitherto unprecedented views of the world, the changing status of the drawing and its representation as a political act demands a platform for reflection and innovation. Drawing Futures will present a compendium of projects, writings and interviews that critically reassess the act of drawing and where its future may lie.Drawing Futures focuses on the discussion of how the field of drawing may expand synchronously alongside technological and computational developments. The book coincides with an international conference of the same name, taking place at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in November 2016. Bringing together practitioners from many creative fields, the book discusses how drawing is changing in relation to new technologies for the production and dissemination of ideas.
William Gibson is frequently described as one of the most influential writers of the past few decades, yet his body of work has only been studied partially and without full recognition of its implications for literature and culture beyond science fiction. It is high time for a book that explores the significance and wide-ranging impact of Gibson’s fiction. In the 1970s and 80s, Gibson, the “Godfather of Cyberpunk,” rejuvenated science fiction. In groundbreaking works such as Neuromancer, which changed science fiction as we knew it, Gibson provided us with a language and imaginary through which it became possible to make sense of the newly emerging world of globalization and the digital and media age. Ever since, Gibson’s reformulation of science fiction has provided us not just with radically innovative visions of the future but indeed with trenchant analyses of our historical present and of the emergence and exhaustion of possible futures. Contributors: Maria Alberto, Andrew M. Butler, Amy J. Elias, Christian Haines, Kylie Korsnack, Mathias Nilges, Malka Older, Aron Pease, Lisa Swanstrom, Takayuki Tatsumi, Sherryl Vint, Phillip E. Wegner, Roger Whitson, Charles Yu
Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation building, and with the utopian visions broadcast by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future is thus understood as a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, Tales of Futures Past introduces "anticipation"—the expectations that permeate life as it unfolds—as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s to 2011. In doing so, Paola Iovene connects the emergence of new literary genres with changing visions of the future in contemporary China. This book provides a nuanced and dynamic account of the relationship between state discourses, market pressures, and individual writers and texts. It stresses authors' and editors' efforts to redefine what constitutes literature under changing political and economic circumstances. Engaging with questions of translation, temporality, formation of genres, and stylistic change, Iovene mines Chinese science fiction and popular science, puts forward a new interpretation of familiar Chinese avant-garde fiction, and offers close readings of texts that have not yet received any attention in English-language scholarship. Far-ranging in its chronological scope and impressive in its interdisciplinary approach, this book rethinks the legacies of socialism in postsocialist Chinese literary modernity.
The term 'temporality' often refers to the traditional mode of the way time is: a linear procession of past, present and future. As philosophers will note, this is not always the case. Christine Ross builds on current philosophical and theoretical examinations of time and applies them to the field of contemporary art: films, video installations, sculpture and performance works. Ross first provides an interdisciplinary overview of contemporary studies on time, focusing on findings in philosophy, psychology, sociology, communications, history, postcolonial studies, and ecology. She then illustrates how contemporary artistic practices play around with what we consider linear time. Engaging the work of artists such as Guido van der Werve, Melik Ohanian, Harun Farocki, and Stan Douglas, allows investigation though the art, as opposed to having art taking an ancillary role. The Past is the Present; It's the Future Too forces the reader to understand the complexities of the significance of temporal development in new artistic practices.
Curated by the Contemporary Art Curator Magazine
Contemporary Futurist Thought describes recent thinking about the future, dealing with both the hopes and the fears expressed in modern times concerning what potentially lies ahead. There are many such hopes and fears perhaps an overpowering number, competing with each other and swirling about in the collective mind of humanity. Psychologist and futurist Tom Lombardo describes this mental universe of inspiring dreams and threatening premonitions regarding the future. The book begins with an in-depth examination of the highly influential literary genre of science fiction, which Dr. Lombardo identifies as the mythology of the future. He next describes the modern academic discipline of future studies which attempts to apply scientific methods and principles to an understanding of the future. Social and technological trends in the twentieth century are then reviewed, setting the stage for an analysis of the great contemporary transformation occurring in our present world. Given the powerful and pervasive changes taking place across the globe and throughout all aspects of human life, the questions arise: Where are we potentially heading and, perhaps more importantly, where should we be heading? The final chapter provides an extensive review of different answers to these questions. Describing theories and approaches that highlight science, technology, culture, human psychology, and religion, among other areas of focus, as well as integrative views which attempt to provide big pictures of all aspects of human life, the book provides a rich and broad overview of contemporary ideas and visions about the future. In the conclusion, Dr. Lombardo assesses and synthesizes these myriad perspectives, proposing a set of key ideas central to understanding the future. This book completes the study of future consciousness begun in its companion volume, The Evolution of Future Consciousness. These two volumes, rich in historical detail and concise observations on the interrelatedness of a wide range of interdisciplinary topics, are a significant contribution to the field of future studies and a valuable resource for educators, consultants, and anyone wishing to explore the significance of thinking about the future.
A revelatory reclaiming of five iconic Chinese artists and their place in art history During the 1980s and 1990s, a group of Chinese artists (Zhang Xiaogang, Wang Guangyi, Sui Jianguo, Zhang Peili, and Lin Tianmiao) ascended to new heights of international renown. Even as their fame increased, they came to be circumscribed by simplistic Western interpretations of their artworks as social and political critiques, a perspective that privileged stories of dissidence over deep engagement with the art itself. Through in-depth case studies of these five artists, Peggy Wang offers a corrective to previous appraisals, demonstrating how their works address fundamental questions about the forms, meanings, and possibilities of art. By the end of the 1980s, Chinese artists were scrutinizing earlier waves of Western influence and turning instead to their own heritage and culture to forge their own future histories. As the national trauma of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre converged with the mounting expansion of the global art world, these artists turned to art as a profoundly generative site for grappling with their place in the world. Wang demonstrates how they consciously and energetically sought to make their own ideas about art and art history visible in contemporary art. Wang’s argument is informed by extensive primary research, including close examination of the artworks, analysis of Chinese language documents and archives, and deeply personal interviews with the artists. Their words uncover layers of meaning previously obscured by the popular and often recycled assessments that many of these works have received until now. Beyond Wang’s reinterpretation of these individual artists, she contributes to an urgent conversation on the future direction of art history: how do we map engagements between art from different parts of the world that are embedded within different art histories? What does it mean for histories of contemporary art—and art history more generally—to be inclusive? The new understandings offered in this book can and should be engaged when considering current hierarchies in histories of Chinese art, the global art world, and the intersections between them.
This edited collection explores how narratives about the future of the Arctic have been produced historically up until the present day. The contemporary deterministic and monolithic narrative is shown to be only one of several possible ways forward. This book problematizes the dominant prediction that there will be increased shipping and resource extraction as the ice melts and shows how this seemingly inevitable future has consequences for the action that can be taken in the present. This collection looks to historical projections about the future of the Arctic, evaluating why some voices have been heard and championed, while others remain marginalised. It questions how these historical perspectives have shaped resource allocation and governance structures to understand the forces behind change in the Arctic region. Considering the history of individuals and institutions, their political and economic networks and their perceived power, the essays in this collection offer new perspectives on how the future of the Arctic has been produced and communicated.
Future Imperfect critically examines the role played by cultural institutions in producing present-day and future contexts for the production, dissemination, and reception of contemporary art in the Middle East and North Africa. It offers historical contexts for discussions that have become increasingly urgent in recent years--the role of culture in a time of conflict and globalization--and an in-depth critique of the state of cultural institutions in an age of political upheaval, social unrest, exuberant cultural activity, ascendant neoliberal forms of privatization, social activism, and regional uncertainty. Based on collective input from numerous contributors and interlocutors, this volume brings together internationally renowned academics, critics, activists, filmmakers, artists, and other independent cultural practitioners to consider how new infrastructures and institutions can effectively emerge within such fraught and dynamic contexts. What is needed in terms of infrastructure for cultural production today, and how, crucially, can we speculatively propose new infrastructures and institutions in the context of present realities? Visual Culture in the Middle East Vol. 3 Supported by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation Contributors Leila Al-Shami*, Monira Al Qadiri, Hoor Al-Qasimi, Anahi Alviso-Marino, AMBS Architects, Stephanie Bailey, Eray Çayli, Rachel Dedman, Elizabeth Derderian, Anthony Downey, Karen Exell, Reema Salha Fadda, Wafa Gabsi, Hadia Gana, Adalet R. Garmiany, Baha Jubeh, Suhair Jubeh, Amal Khalaf, Kamel Lazaar, Jens Maier-Rothe, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Doreen Mende, Lea Morin, Jack Persekian, Wided Rihana Khadraoui*, Rijin Sahakian, Gregory Sholette, Tom Snow, Lois Stonock*, Nile Sunset Annex*, Ania Szremski, Christine Tohme, Toleen Touq, Williams Wells, Ala Younis, Yasmine Zidane (*online projects)