Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde explores the relationship between art and philosophy. Andrew Benjamin argues for a reworking of the task of philosophy in terms of the centrality of ontology. It is in relation to this centrality, understood through the differences between modes of being, that art, mimesis, and the avant-garde come to be presented. A fundamental part of this book is the original interpretations of important contemporary painters and their themes: Lucian Freud's self-portraits, Francis Bacon 's use of mirrors, (...) R. B. Kitaj and Jewish identity, Anselm Kiefer and iconoclasm. Apart from painting, Benjamin considers architecture, literature, and the philosophical writings of Walter Benjamin and Descartes in elaborating the various aspects of ontological difference. Benjamin develops the theory of the avant-garde as a philosophical category rather than a historical marker, thus bringing the worlds of contemporary art criticism and contemporary philosophy closer together. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to begin to respond to the question of how to engage the presence of catastrophic climate change as a locus of philosophical thought. What has to be thought is the end of the world. Central to that project is Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art,” and in particular, Heidegger’s thinking of the earth/world relation, both in itself and in terms of the limits it encounters. Heidegger’s use of “examples” of artwork, as well (...) as works by Nicolas Poussin and Anselm Kiefer, are deployed in order to begin to understand the role of art in thinking the end of the world. (shrink)

Il saggio propone un confronto tra l’ultima filosofia di Walter Benjamin e l’opera di Anselm Kiefer. Sullo sfondo della questione del rapporto tra passato, memoria e identità, che in entrambi assume una forma drammatica, tale confronto riguarda in particolare l’opera di Kiefer, Der Engel der Geschichte. Mohn und Gedächtnis (L’Angelo della storia: papavero e memoria; piombo, vetro, fili metallici e papaveri, 1989, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) e l’Angelus Novus di PaulKlee, al centro delle Tesi sul concetto di storia, (...) vero e proprio testamento filosofico di Benjamin. Il confronto tra l’arte di Kiefer e la filosofia di Benjamin si sviluppa sul filo del contrappunto anziché della consonanza. Il tentativo è quello di mostrare come opera d’arte e testo filosofico possono dialogare, in quanto espressione di posizioni e linguaggi differenti e autonomi. Il terreno problematico comune, nel nostro caso, è quello offerto dalle catastrofi della memoria e dall’amnesia del presente. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin have emerged as figures of great importance in the current debates about modernity. The central and privileged place of the philosophical problem of modernity has been threatened by the possibility advanced by Jean-François Lyotard that modernity as a project is over and the new concern is the postmodern. The work of Adorno and Benjamin is the background against which the problems of modernity and postmodernity are addressed in this volume. This collection brings together some of (...) the most innovative academics working in the area of European radical philosophy. Issues covered range from art, literature and music to feminism and Judaism. (shrink)

This collection explores, in Adorno's description, `philosophy directed against philosophy'. The essays cover all aspects of Benjamin's writings, from his early work in the philosophy of art and language, through to the concept of history. The experience of time and the destruction of false continuity are identified as the key themes in Benjamin's understanding of history.

In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought.

Called “the most important critic of his time” by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years, as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A “natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature,” writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas, while (...) also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Max Brod, and Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamin’s work, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth century’s most significant criticism. (shrink)

Anthropology of Consciousness, EarlyView.

Based on the definitive English edition of Kierkegaard's works by Princeton University Press, this series of commentaries addresses all the published texts of ...

Le Manifeste du rio Negro (in Journal du rio Negro, 1978-2014) est l’un des premiers textes majeurs publiés en France au sujet de l’art écologique. Quoique d’un impact limité lors de sa diffusion, il est désormais repris et commenté par les acteurs de l’art contemporain. Dans ce texte, Pierre Restany s’inquiète de la relation art-nature, une fois n’est pas coutume. À partir de notre lecture de son journal, nous interrogeons les gestes des successeurs de Restany. Depuis l’émergence de l’art écologique, (...) plusieurs éléments constitutifs participent à définir la critique de cet art. Quels sont les modes d’appréciation privilégiés par les critiques? Sur quels critères fondent-ils leurs évaluations des œuvres? (shrink)

Nietzsche distinguished between two forces in art: Apollonian, which represents order and reason, and Dionysian, which represents chaos and energy. Economists, Ward argues, have operated for too long under the assumption that their work reflects the scientific, Apollonian principals that inform physics when they simply do not apply to economics: 'constants' in economics stand in for variables, and the core scientific principles of prediction and replication are all but ignored by economists. Ward encourages economists to reintegrate the standard rigor of (...) the scientific method into their work while embracing the fact of the shape-shifting changeability of human beings. Economists can still aspire to scientific standards, as is demonstrated by the success of biology, in which there is considerable Dionysian variability. Economists must avoid the temptation to wish away dynamic complexity and diversity and must recognize, among other things, that the desire to take risks is fundamentally human. The second half of the book takes some first steps toward creating this new Dionysian Economics. (shrink)

Antiques are undoubtedly objects worthy of aesthetic appreciation, but do they have a distinctive aesthetic value in virtue of being antiques? In this article we give an account of what it is to be an antique that gives the thesis that they do have a distinctive aesthetic value a chance of being true and suggests what that distinctive value consists in. After introducing our topic in Section I, in Section II we develop and defend the Adjectival Thesis: the thesis that (...) the concept of being an antique is an adjectival concept. This provides us with the means to formulate our definition, which we do in Section III. In Section IV we further explicate and defend our definition. In Section V we conclude by briefly saying where we think our definition could be improved, by making a few comments about the aesthetics of antiques and by stating an interesting consequence of our definition: that it is not analytic that antiques are old. (shrink)

Die Untersuchung gliedert sich in einen allgemeinen und einen besonderen Teil. Der allgemeine Teil, der die ersten neun Kapitel umfasst, hat es mit den Veränderungen zu tun, denen die Funktion des Kunstwerkes in seiner technisch reproduzierten Gestalt unterworfen ist. Die Qualität seiner technischen Reproduktion und die Geschwindigkeit ihrer Herstellung sind seit den einschlägigen Erfindungen des letzten Jahrhunderts in schnellem Wachstum begriffen. Die Zeit, die zwischen der Erfindung der Lithographie und der des Tonfilms liegt, umfasst kaum mehr Jahrzehnte als die zwischen (...) der Erfindung des Holzschnitts und der der Lithographie liegenden Jahrhunderte. Der Film ist die derzeit fortgeschrittenste künstlerische R ‘produktionstechnik. Er bedeutet in der Geschichte der Kunst etwas grundlegend Neues, nämlich die Reproduktion eines auf Reproduzierbarkeit angelegten Kunstwerkes. Der besondere Teil der Untersuchung hat es mit dem Film als der der Kunst in der Epoche ihrer technischen Reproduzierbarkeit spezifischen Form zu tun.Das erste Kapitel der Untersuchung entwickelt den Unterschied zwischen manueller und technischer Reproduktion des Kunstwerkes. Das zweite* umschreibt den jeder Reproduktion entzogenen Bereich der Echtheit, der die Aura des Kunstwerkes bildet. Das dritte bestimmt den Charakter der gegenwärtigen Wahrnehmung als bestimmt durch den Verfall der Aura. Das vierte weist die Fundierung der Echtheit in den Zusammenhängen des Rituals auf. Das fünfte hat es mit dem Unterschied des auf dem Ritual beruhenden Kultwertes des Kunstwerks von seinem Ausstellungwert zu tun. Das sechste zeigt, welchen verschiedenen Entwicklungsstufen der Technik Kultwert und Ausstellungswert des Kunstwerkes entsprechen. Das s'ebte handelt von dem beginnenden Übergewicht des Ausstellungswertes über den Kultwert in der Photographie. Das achte beleuchtet die Sonderstellung der griechischen Kunst durch ihren fast völligen Mangel an technischen Reproduktionsverfahren. Das neunte weist auf die Schwierigkeiten hin, die der überkommenen Aesthetik durch die Photographie und den Film erwachsen.Der zweite Teil der Untersuchung zieht aus den Analysen des ersten Teils die Folgerungen für die Filmtheorie. Er beschäftigt sich mit den Umständen, die aus dem Film dasjenige Kunstwerk machen, an dem die derzeitige Funktionsänderung sich am deutlichsten abnehmen lässt. Diese Funktionsänderung besteht in der Überführung des Kunstwerkes aus der ritualen in die politische Praxis.The investigation is divided into two parts, the first conceived on general lines and the second dealing with one specific aspect of the question. The general part deals with the changes to which the function of a work of art is subjected in its technically reproduced form. The quality of its technical reproduction and the speed with which the same is established have made great progress since the inventions of last century in that sphere. The period of time existing between the invention of lithography and that of the sound film contains scarcely more decades than there are centuries between the invention of the wood-cut and that of lithography. The film, at present, has the most highly developed technic of artistic reproduction. In the history of art the film represents something fundamentally new, namely, the reproduction of a work of art which aims precisely at such reproducibility. The second part of the investigation deals with the film as the specific form of art in the era of technical reproducibility.The first chapter develops the difference between manual and technical reproduction of a work of art. The second delimits the sphere of authenticity which forms the aura of a work of art and which is withdrawn from every reproduction. The third defines the character of modern perception as determined by the deterioration of the aura. The fourth chapter shows that the foundation of authenticity lies in the associations of ritual. The fifth deals with the difference between the cult-value based on ritual and the exhibition-value of a work of art. The sixth shows the various stages in the development of technical art to which the cult-value and the exhibition-value of a work of art correspond. The seventh treats the beginnings of the predominance of the exhibition-value over the cult- value in photography. The eighth throws light on the special position of Greek art due to its being almost completely lacking in methods of technical reproduction. The ninth draws attention to the difficulties which arise for traditional esthetics Through photography and the film.The second part of the investigation draws from the analyses of the first part certain conclusions concerning the theory of film-making. It concerns itself with the circumstances which make the film the work of art from which the modern change of function can be most clearly deduced. This change of function consists in the transference of the work of art from the realm of ritual to that of politics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is establish the difference between aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Part of the argument is that only a philosophy of art can give an adequate philosophical account of works of art. The argument is advanced drawing on the writings of Immanuel Kant and Gunter Figal.

Auf den ersten Blick könnten die Welten, die in diesem Buch aufeinandertreffen, kaum gegensätzlicher sein. Anselm Kiefer, einer der bedeutendsten und international erfolgreichsten Künstler der Gegenwart, beschäftigt sich in seinem Werk mit den wesentlichen Fragen der Gesellschaft. Seine Bilder sind geheimnisvolle Chiffren zur Entschlüsselung der Welt und ihrer immer neuen Rätsel, sie offenbaren Überlagerungen, Durchdringungen, Verschmelzungen. Peter Handke nannte ihn »einen stillen Wilden..., auf dem Sprung, eine Art neuen Alphabets der Malerei zu entwerfen«. Ihm gegenüber Mathias Döpfner, Vorstandsvorsitzender der (...) Axel Springer AG, ursprünglich jedoch Germanist, Musikwissenschaftler, Journalist. Aus dem Kontrast entsteht ein fesselnder, erhellender Dialog über Kunst und Politik, Natur und Mythos, Kultur und Geschichte, Theologie und Ökonomie, Philosophie und Literatur. (shrink)

Résumé Dans cet article il s’agit de mobiliser contre le faux constat que l’œuvre d’art disparaît avec sa matière, le cas d’œuvres dont le mode d’existence est détectable mais ne se donne qu’après-coup, dans les médias d’information. Ce qui met le spectateur sur la piste d’un art sous couverture médiatique le rapproche aussi de l’activisme culturel. L’indistinction de l’un et l’autre, ce qu’on appelle l’artivisme, conduit à parler d’effacement plutôt que de disparition de l’œuvre.

Clarifies Wittgenstein's ideas about ethics and aesthetics and illustrates how those ideas apply to art history and criticism and to an understanding of the importance of art in people's lives.

Is it appropriate to honour and admire people who have created great works of art, made important intellectual contributions, performed great sporting feats or shaped the history of a nation if those people have also acted immorally? This book provides a philosophical investigation of this important and timely question. -/- The authors draw on the latest research from ethics, value theory, philosophy of emotion, social philosophy and social psychology to develop and substantiate arguments that have been made in the public (...) debates about this issue. They offer a detailed analysis of the nature and ethics of honour and admiration, and present reasons both in favor and against honouring and admiring the immoral. They also take on the important matter of whether we can separate the achievements of public figures from their immoral behavior. Ultimately, the authors reject a "one-size-fits-all" approach and argue that we must weigh up the reasons for and against honouring and admiring in each particular case. -/- Honouring and Admiring the Immoral is written in an accessible style that shows how philosophy can engage with public debates about important ethical issues. It will be of interest to scholars and students working in moral philosophy, philosophy of emotion, and social philosophy. (shrink)

Debates over the 'end of art' have tended to obscure Hegel's work on the arts themselves. Benjamin Rutter opens this study with a defence of art's indispensability to Hegel's conception of modernity; he then seeks to reorient discussion toward the distinctive values of painting, poetry, and the novel. Working carefully through Hegel's four lecture series on aesthetics, he identifies the expressive possibilities particular to each medium. Thus, Dutch genre scenes animate the everyday with an appearance of vitality; metaphor frees language (...) from prose; and Goethe's lyrics revive the banal routines of love with imagination and wit. Rutter's important study reconstructs Hegel's view not only of modern art but of modern life and will appeal to philosophers, literary theorists, and art historians alike. (shrink)

Benjamin Jowett's translations of Plato have long been classics in their own right. In this volume, Professor Hayden Pelliccia has revised Jowett's renderings of five key dialogues, giving us a modern Plato faithful to both Jowett's best features and Plato's own masterly style. Gathered here are many of Plato's liveliest and richest texts. Ion takes up the question of poetry and introduces the Socratic method. Protagoras discusses poetic interpretation and shows why cross-examination is the best way to get at the (...) truth. Phaedrus takes on the nature of rhetoric, psychology, and love, as does the famous Symposium. Finally, Apology gives us Socrates' art of persuasion put to the ultimate test--defending his own life. Pelliccia's new Introduction to this volume clarifies its contents and addresses the challenges of translating Plato freshly and accurately. In its combination of accessibility and depth, Selected Dialogues of Plato is the ideal introduction to one of the key thinkers of all time. (shrink)

This essay addresses the theoretical foundations of Danto’s vision of performance art. In his writings, Danto rarely mentions this art form and when he does so, it is for the most part in a negative way. Still, there is one clue to Danto’s deeper engagement with performance art. This is his constant references to Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. Danto finds in Nietzsche a critical tool for engaging with contemporary artists: what he calls the “Euripidean dilemma”. This approach provides a (...) basis for discussing the relevance of Nietzschean thought in developing a philosophical understanding of performance art. (shrink)

Résumé Les sculptures d’Alberto Giacometti révèlent une profonde ambiguïté dans leur caractère d’œuvre : à la pérennité et la solennité traditionnellement associées à l’œuvre d’art répond en effet une fragilité bouleversante qui expose parfois l’œuvre au risque de sa disparition. Comment donc comprendre les phénomènes de miniaturisation ou de dématérialisation dans ces sculptures? Dans un contexte historique de remise en question de la notion d’œuvre d’art, l’artiste entend tout à la fois faire œuvre et suggérer la menace de disparition qui (...) entoure toute vision. (shrink)

World-leading philosopher Andrew Benjamin presents a radically new materialist philosophy of art and a rethinking of the history of art in that context.

The work of the contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy has impacted across a range of disciplines. His writings on psychoanalysis, theology, art, culture and, of course, philosophy are now widely translated and much discussed. His L'Experience de la Liberte is considered to be one of the landmarks of contemporary continental philosophy. Jean-Luc Nancy and the Future of Philosophy is the first genuine introduction to Nancy's ideas and a clear and succinct appraisal of a burgeoning reputation. The book summarises topically the (...) primary conceptual areas of Nancy's thought and explores its relevance for contemporary issues like nationalism, racism and media rights. Nancy's indebtedness to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Bataille is examined as well as how his ideas compare to those of his contemporary continental thinkers. Three major areas of Nancy's work are emphasised: freedom and morality; community and politics; and arts and the media. The reader is guided through a chosen theme without being lost in a welter of allusive language, jargon is avoided where possible and when unavoidable it is clearly explained. The book concludes with a new interview with Nancy, which discusses the future of philosophy. The book will be an important addition to the readings lists for courses on contemporary continental thought and political philosophy. (shrink)

The paper both connects and disassociates the work of Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg. There are two interrelated undertakings. The first involves the relationship between philosophy and art history and thus how art history figures within the philosophical. The second pertains to the status of the image. Part of the argument to be advanced is that an engagement with philosophical approach to art history yields a concern with the image in which it is the image's material presence that proves decisive. (...) Indeed, it is by insisting on the object's materiality that it then becomes possible to locate the effective presence of the gesture as integral to the work of art. The contention is that gesture is the intersection of art's material presence and the concerns of meaning. The paper us develop via an engagement with works by Edgar Degas and Luca Signorelli. (shrink)

Miles Davis, supremely cool behind his shades. Billie Holiday, eyes closed and head tilted back in full cry. John Coltrane, one hand behind his neck and a finger held pensively to his lips. These iconic images have captivated jazz fans nearly as much as the music has. Jazz photographs are visual landmarks in American history, acting as both a reflection and a vital part of African American culture in a time of immense upheaval, conflict, and celebration. Charting the development of (...) jazz photography from the swing era of the 1930s to the rise of black nationalism in the ’60s, Blue Notes in Black and White is the first of its kind: a fascinating account of the partnership between two of the twentieth century’s most innovative art forms. Benjamin Cawthra introduces us to the great jazz photographers—including Gjon Mili, William Gottlieb, Herman Leonard, Francis Wolff, Roy DeCarava, and William Claxton—and their struggles, hustles, styles, and creative visions. We also meet their legendary subjects, such as Duke Ellington, sweating through a late-night jam session for the troops during World War II, and Dizzy Gillespie, stylish in beret, glasses, and goatee. Cawthra shows us the connections between the photographers, art directors, editors, and record producers who crafted a look for jazz that would sell magazines and albums. And on the other side of the lens, he explores how the musicians shaped their public images to further their own financial and political goals. This mixture of art, commerce, and racial politics resulted in a rich visual legacy that is vividly on display in Blue Notes in Black and White. Beyond illuminating the aesthetic power of these images, Cawthra ultimately shows how jazz and its imagery served a crucial function in the struggle for civil rights, making African Americans proudly, powerfully visible. (shrink)

This essay responds to John McDermott’s diagnosis of politics and religious life in the U.S.: “[B]oth traditional political and religious institutions are no longer an adequate let alone rich resource for a celebratory language.” I present a new celebratory language by reading William James’s description of saintliness in Varieties of Religious Experience. James gives me the resources to naturalize and democratize saintliness. Distinguished not by her transcendent miracles but by her this-worldly energies and experiments, the pragmatic saint remakes the experience (...) of her community through celebration, a form of appreciation and criticism exemplified in engaged art. My ethical and aesthetic description of the saint thus builds on E. Paul Colella’s recent political description of the saint as the “strenuous citizen.”. (shrink)

This interview was conducted with one of the closest friends of the visual artist Ray Johnson, the late photographer and writer William S. Wilson. Johnson was a fixture of the New York downtown art scene in the late 1940, 1950s, and 1960s. He was influenced by Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists alike, but was a true original, widely considered to be the founder of “mail art” and also an important collagist and performance artist. Wilson helped Johnson to formulate the idea (...) of “mail art” as they exchanged correspondence, thoughts, ideas, experiences, and much else besides. In this interview, Wilson discusses Johnson's sexuality, sadomasochistic practice, and philosophy of friendship. He provides hitherto unknown details about Johnson's intimate relations with the artist Richard Lippold and life at Black Mountain College. Wilson also recounts details of Johnson's relation to women in terms of art, friendship, love, and sex. But more than anything, this interview captures the atmosphere of queer life in the middle decades of the twentieth century and Johnson's particular experiences of that era. (shrink)

We often use the words "emotion" and "feeling" as very nearly convertible ... See The Basis of Criticism in the Arts (Cambridge, Mass.,), p. ...

This collection explores, in Adorno's description, `philosophy directed against philosophy'. The essays cover all aspects of Benjamin's writings, from his early work in the philosophy of art and language, through to the concept of history. The experience of time and the destruction of false continuity are identified as the key themes in Benjamin's understanding of history.

Collected essays consider points of affinity and friction between Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger. Despite being contemporaries, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger never directly engaged with one another. Yet, Hannah Arendt, who knew both men, pointed out common ground between the two. Both were concerned with the destruction of metaphysics, the development of a new way of reading and understanding literature and art, and the formulation of radical theories about time and history. On the other hand, their life trajectories and (...) political commitments were radically different. In a 1930 letter, Benjamin told a friend that he had been reading Heidegger and that if the two were to engage with one another, “sparks will fly.” Acknowledging both their affinities and points of conflict, this volume stages that confrontation, focusing in particular on temporality, Romanticism, and politics in their work. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The project of this paper is part of a larger attempt to develop a philosophy of art. Integral to that project is the distinction between aesthetics and a philosophy of art. It is always possible to consider affect as an end in itself if what is at stake involves a series of psychological claims. Equally, it is possible to engage with such claims philosophically. However, there is no clear connection between either possibility and a philosophy of art. In the latter (...) the presentation of affect is always located within images. Images are produced by the work of materials. Images have to be understood in terms of that production. They have a material presence. If there is a failure to insist on the complex materiality of art’s work as comprising a locus of philosophical inquiry, then any subsequent theory of the image is unable to contribute to the development of a genuine philosophy of art. Moreover, within the history of art images are informed form. The informing of form has two elements. Form is informed firstly by the history in which those images are located, and secondly by their capacity to be reworked. The latter can be understood as a futural coming-into-relation and thus the possibility that images and the elements from which they are comprised are able to have an afterlife. The afterlife is forms’ capacity to continue to be informed. It is this latter possibility which necessitates that hermeneutic concerns supplant aesthetic ones in the creation of a philosophy of art. (shrink)

Long before Siri and ChatGPT uttered their first automated words, there was only one way to program synthetic speech: with paint and brush. During the transformative years between 1930 and 1960, artists, linguists, and engineers mixed sound and image in a way that combined artistic production with new technologies. What was known as “synthesis-by-art” grew into the rules that power computer speech today. This article concentrates on the emergence of rule-based speech synthesis at Haskins Laboratories in mid-twentieth-century America. An unexpected (...) outgrowth of their work with disabled Second World War veterans, members of the Haskins group had developed a new machine that converted visual patterns into sound: the Pattern Playback. Like holes in a player-piano roll, painted shapes were mechanically translated into distinct sounds. Early experiments at the laboratory promised “a new art form.” Researchers painted pictures of music and listened to geometric shapes. This work eventually grew into a psycholinguistic program committed to painting the shapes of speech. But these early aesthetic experiments had helped researchers cultivate a familiarity with paint, brush, and subjective bodily knowledge. This allowed them to intuitively develop a recipe for painting synthetic speech. In other words, their painting hands enacted knowledge long before they could articulate the complex rules that govern how phonemes interact. By the late 1950s, lab member Frances Ingemann successfully converted this “embodied knowing” into a machine-legible code that rigorously detailed how to paint synthetic speech. She had hoped that her rules might result in a reading machine for blind users that would automatically convert text into speech. Instead, her work was coopted by J. C. R. Licklider, who described Ingemann’s rulebook as “a digital code, suitable for use by computing machines.” While Licklider would use the work of Haskins Laboratories to spearhead his novel concept of man-computer symbiosis, he obscured the extent to which this digital code grew from the anomalous bodies of wounded war veterans and the subjective knowing of painting hands. Indeed, the forgotten history of early text-to-speech shows the indivisibility of interactive computing and digital codes from the material practices and embodied cognition from which they grew. (shrink)

This essay explores the work of “New York’s most famous unknown artist,” Ray Johnson, contending that his complex relationship to sadomasochism provides a key switch point for Pop’s sexual and racial imaginary. In the register of sex, Johnson’s sadomasochism contests the stability of the relationship between homosexuality and Pop, offering instead a queerer object that opens out new models of collaborative artistic production. In the register of race, sadomasochism enables Johnson to articulate a monochrome world, attempting to void the binarized (...) color-line’s fissuring force. While this strategy from our contemporary vantage feels politically suspect, I see it is part of a larger project of political and social reparation whereby the explicitly sadomasochistic themes of Johnson’s work imagine a rebuttal to and reconfiguration of the racist exclusionary forces of the art world. (shrink)

How can cross-disciplinary speculative narratives give us insights and open new paths of research? Borrowing from a number of disciplines, from Anthropology to Psychology or Art history, I will draw a hypothetical blueprint of processes that possibly led to the creation of the Ainu people’s patterns, an indigenous tribe from north Japan. From some particular key points I will narrate a speculative tale giving us possible insights about those specific patterns, as well as about the questions encapsulated in the split (...) representation in the art of Asia and America, questions that were raised by various anthropologists, from Franz Boas to Claude Levi-Strauss. I will demonstrate that those pattern-making habits were inherent to human being as a species until very recently. What kind of unconscious purpose or meaning they could have had and what it could mean in terms of the evolution of consciousness. (shrink)

Here, I explore a modernist aesthetics of death metal. First, I briefly describe a few themes that characterize some modern art, without any claim that they are necessary, sufficient, or exhaustive. The goal is to obtain a set of themes that might be set against similar themes characteristic of death metal. This is the task in the second half of the paper. In particular, I argue that (some) modernist art and death metal share themes centered on transgressively breaking with the (...) past, pursue their conception of the truth, eliminate elements in their art form to purity them, and attack the art/non-art or music/non-music distinction. I contend that centering on death metal vocals reflects these themes. Death metal growls, like some modernist art, transgresses on past vocal traditions, tells us important truths, eliminates traditional concepts/techniques of signing, and undermines the singing/noise distinction. (shrink)

The contemporary theorization of art can be traced in a series of interlocking and antagonistic positions: the dissolution of art into social relations, the tracking of art as the work of objects that recede from our grasp, and the practice of art as instantiating or linking to an immanent plane. I take the question of immanence as central to these debates. This is because immanence implies a superior plane that exceeds specification or determination, and it also traces the problem of (...) capitalism as our horizon of immanence that threatens to absorb any such excess, whether that is artistic, political or ontological. Tracking the problem of immanence, I explore how it rests on the tension of a relation to immanence. Using the work of Gilles Deleuze I analyse this relation as existing in the tension between a moment of excess, often theological, and an immanent relation or fold. Returning to Deleuze's use of the early Sartre we find that Sartre offers a subtly different thinking of relations and immanence through exploring how we are cast out amongst relations and objects. I then use two of Sartre's later essays on art to examine his development of a “situated absolute”: the artwork as the site which condenses and gathers the contradictions of relations and objects into itself, precisely refusing immanence. This, I argue, offers the key to unsettling the coordinates of contemporary art theory by reinstating a thinking of the absolute as positional and at once immersed and antagonistic. (shrink)