Episode 15: Attention The two days Symposium “Women in Space” at the Art Institute HGK FHNW in Basel thematized the roles of scale, space and power in envisioning women in the art system: space is an issue for everyone, yet, it has specific resonance for those who make exhibitions and run institutions, and for women in general. How we move through space, how we claim it, how we narrate and thematize it, how we fund it, how we labor in it, how we construct and deconstruct it. In this episode Chus Martinez & Quinn Latimer are in conversation with Mareike Dittmer, ...

There is a certain plasticity of meaning inherent in any use of language. If that weren’t the case, poetry and literature would not exist. There would only be contracts, scientific formulas, shopping lists, and so forth. Journalism would be properly factual—there would be no fake news or disinformation. All utterances would document isolated events, never evoking larger patterns or tapping into hidden desires. But then the question arises: Even if language could be cleansed of all ambiguity and spin, what role would images play? If language is the problem, images can only be worse. Against a backdrop where postmodern slippages in ...

As the novel coronavirus pandemic spreads, we—the people of planet earth—are faced with a dizzying variety of responses: quarantine, containment, vigilant self-quarantine, paranoid self-isolation, and in some cases escape from the above. Suddenly, it is as if circulation itself has turned against us, making healthy freedom of movement in the world a dealer of death. So your flight is cancelled. Your trip is over. We are staying in place for the foreseeable future. Exhibitions, symposia, gatherings of all kinds are postponed. But not sporting events. Those will go on, but without any supporters in the stands. The players will play ...

In this issue, Alessandra Franetovich and Trevor Paglen discuss Orbital Reflector, Paglen’s reflective sculpture launched into low-earth orbit as a satellite. Housed in a small box-like structure, the lightweight reflective material of the sculpture was meant to deploy and self-inflate like a balloon and reflect sunlight towards earth, making it visible to our eyes as a nearby artificial star. Unfortunately, at the critical moment of the sculpture’s release in 2018, the US government was on shutdown, with all agencies held hostage in order to force Congress to fund Trump’s gigantic border wall between the US and Mexico. There was no ...

The Covid-19 pandemic has attacked not only our individual bodies, but our collective body as well. Through thirteen contributions by writers who are mostly from former socialist countries where the space of freedom is contracting once again, this special issue of e-flux journal asks what this collective body actually means, and what it has become. These changes are not only happening in Europe’s former socialist countries. Something similar is also occurring in Greece and Turkey, where two essays in the issue originate. This is not to say that all is well elsewhere, that democracy is thriving in Western Europe and North ...

A riddle: One night, an arresting officer enters a holding cell full of people. He asks the group what they were doing congregating on the public thoroughfare that morning. Why bring their bodies out from home to stand together on the sidewalk, walk together on the street? The officer seeks connection. Somewhere in the cell’s radius a commercial window had been smashed. Somewhere in the cell’s radius was a changing of the guards. Thinking for a moment that they can see each other, one of the arrested persons asks in return, “Well, don’t you think another world is possible?” What ...

Episode 13: Poverty The two days Symposium “Women in Space” at the Art Institute HGK FHNW in Basel thematized the roles of scale, space and power in envisioning women in the art system: space is an issue for everyone, yet, it has specific resonance for those who make exhibitions and run institutions, and for women in general. How we move through space, how we claim it, how we narrate and thematize it, how we fund it, how we labor in it, how we construct and deconstruct it. In this episode Chus Martinez & Quinn Latimer are in conversation with iLiana Fokianaki, ...

Episode 14: Precision The two days Symposium “Women in Space” at the Art Institute HGK FHNW in Basel thematized the roles of scale, space and power in envisioning women in the art system: space is an issue for everyone, yet, it has specific resonance for those who make exhibitions and run institutions, and for women in general. How we move through space, how we claim it, how we narrate and thematize it, how we fund it, how we labor in it, how we construct and deconstruct it. In this episode Chus Martinez & Quinn Latimer are in conversation with Ines Goldbach, ...

e-flux journal editor Brian Kuan Wood speaks to iLiana Fokianaki and Laura Raicovich on the occasion of Rojava Film Commune: Forms of Freedom at e-flux. The exhibition is curated by Fokianaki and on view through April 4, 2020.

Episode 11: Transplantation The two days Symposium “Women in Space” at the Art Institute HGK FHNW in Basel thematized the roles of scale, space and power in envisioning women in the art system: space is an issue for everyone, yet, it has specific resonance for those who make exhibitions and run institutions, and for women in general. How we move through space, how we claim it, how we narrate and thematize it, how we fund it, how we labor in it, how we construct and deconstruct it. In this episode Chus Martinez & Quinn Latimer are in conversation with iLiana Fokianaki, ...