‘The Gift (2012), Liberate Tate.’ Photo: Martin LeSanto Smith As a university supported ‘research agency,’ Forensic Architecture are able to develop evidence and promote the means of ‘lawfare,’ often against governments. With their access to high profile cultural platforms, they convene fora around their evidence and pursue forms of legal and political activism. On the… Continue reading Liberate Tate: Friendly Criticism at an Interstitial Distance
Category: Art
Critical Habitations: Ecopolitics for teh Lulz
[Photo: ‘Anonymous’] My text, ‘Ecopolitics for teh Lulz: Transmedia Civil Disobedience in the Age of Fossil-Fuelled Information Capitalism’, has been published in Critical Habitations as a contribution to its third debate, ‘Pluralising Practices.’ According to the editors Alexander Dunst, Elahe Haschemi Yekani, Gudrun Rath and Anja Schwarz: Cultural studies today fork distinct trajectories, thus making… Continue reading Critical Habitations: Ecopolitics for teh Lulz
un Magazine: Mass Aktion Media
[‘Video still: Ende Gelände wrap-up video.’ 350.org, 2016.] ‘I got two versions.’ My text ‘Mass Action Media:Ende Gelände, Break Free 2016’ has been published in un Magazine 10.2, an issue that concerns ‘the throng.’ Also, a slightly different version is available as a print yourself A3 ’zine here. Instructions on how to cut and fold… Continue reading un Magazine: Mass Aktion Media
Cyberactivism
In July 2015, I presented a working paper, ‘Choreography of Disobedience,’ at the recent Performance Studies international (PSi) conference, ‘Performance Climates,’ at the University of Melbourne. My paper expanded an earlier discussion of the Climate Games during COP21, Paris. Reviewing these events I was struck by the lack of ‘cyberactivism’ that occurred during the games.… Continue reading Cyberactivism
Cube Tactics
[‘Inflatable barricades, Ende Gelände 2016’ Photo: Paul Levi Wagner / 350.org] In a recent interview Artúr van Balen of the Tools For Action (TFA) collective discusses the evolution of the now iconic inflatable barricades (née cobblestone), a silver foil inflatable cube which was recently featured in the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition, Disobedient Objects (2014).… Continue reading Cube Tactics
Overland: ‘Power of assembly: On the New World Summit’
[‘Richard Bell, Callum Clayton-Dixon and Ilena Saturay, New World Summit Utrecht, 31 January 2016.’ Photo: Ernie Buts.] My short overview of the last New World Summit in Utrecht, January 2016 is now online at Overland. ‘Drawing on Rojava’s political experiment, the sixth NWS convened in Utrecht over the last weekend in January this year to… Continue reading Overland: ‘Power of assembly: On the New World Summit’
Runway: ‘Institutional Reform’
[Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter speaking on the panel ‘Border Visions’ at Transmediale, Haus der Kulteren der Welt Berlin, February 2016.] A new article, ‘Institutional Reform: Art as Anti-Statecraft’ for Runway #30, Ecologies is now online. Institutions that facilitate the coming together of cultural objects, historical narratives, philosophical concepts, the wealthy elite and their political… Continue reading Runway: ‘Institutional Reform’
Counterpower
[‘Dilar Dirik, Sixth New World Summit, 29–31 January 2016, Utrecht.’ Photo: New World Summit] The late American historian and political theorist, Murray Bookchin (1921–2006), remains a prominent theorist of the peoples’ assembly. Bookchin pioneered the field of ‘social ecology,’ concerned with the inter-relations between social justice and ecological wellbeing. He considered collective face-to-face meetings as… Continue reading Counterpower
Prefiguration in the Present
[‘Freedom of Assembly, Protest at Zuccotti Park.’ Photo: Jason Lester] Paula Serafini begins her recent study of climate art-activists movements in the UK with the following statement: In the study of activism and social movements, prefiguration is seen as the creation of a future through present social relations (Serafini 2015, p. 195). She goes onto… Continue reading Prefiguration in the Present
RealTime: ‘Art versus the war against Nature’
[Photo: Artúr van Balen / Tools for Action] My report from Paris COP21 for RealTime, re-titled as ‘Art versus the war against Nature’ is now online. I will keep the title it was filed with, ‘Choreography of disobedience,’ for an upcoming conference paper. The second week of COP21 was notable for the influx of activists from… Continue reading RealTime: ‘Art versus the war against Nature’