a kind of forever present that takes the form of a theatrical script to perform a fictitious conversation among cultural theorists that considers what ever happened to postmodernism. The script culls parts of seminal texts by Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Jürgen Habermas, Clement Greenberg and Jennifer Allen and combines them into a discussion about the transformation of postmodernism into a hybrid, constant stream of social media and digital technology that inherently changes our relationship with time.

The time clock is a device for the material worker. It ticks away, minute by minute, hour by hour over the course of each and every day. In the olden days the work completed was equal to the material proof at the end of eight hours. Today, the immaterial worker does not have the same symbiotic relationship with the time clock. The time clock for the immaterial worker is irrelevant because they work continually. And they work on what is most expected of them: the constant flow of ideas. Their time is not measured in concrete things. It is measured ...

I was happy then is a book and film that unites the cinematic spaces of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1962 L’eclisse and the present-day reality of Siena, Italy. Through the framework of a tourist guide that focuses on topics of alienation, architecture, economy, love and urbanization, I was happy then is a critical reflection on cities that renounce the contemporary in exchange for a re-presentation of key historical periods. It expands possibilities for dissemination of written and visual content by bringing together complementary qualities of printed matter and film into a singular work.

On Symptoms of Cultural Industry examines the impact of cultural production on economic, social and physical characteristics of post-industrial cities, specifically North Adams, Massachusetts. The book is an extension of an exhibition that included performance, video and photography procured from interviews with former workers of Sprague Electric Company, now home to MASS MoCA. While specific to a region, the book speaks widely to conditions cities face in wake of changes from Fordist to post-Fordist economic models.

Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven seeks to generate ideas about contemporary life in the wake of postmodernism. It explores these issues in relation to how the passage of time once evident in the material residues of our culture has given way technology, social media and consumerism that change the way we perceive to time. The essay takes the form of a three-act play and prologue that combines parts of seminal texts by leading theorists on postmodernism, a pastiche that shapes a fictional conversation⎯itself performing the very ideas addressed by the publication. The book has original musical scores with lyrics drawn from Orwell’s 1984.

Shifter’s 20th issue, What We Can Knot draws from George Bernard Shaw’s quip “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.” In this issue we would like to parse out and challenge what we see to be Shaw’s false binary, and to explore the value of negotiation and collaboration as important elements both in the studio and in the classroom. To this end we have invited several individuals who are both artist and educator, to consider the active relation between art practice and teaching in their life. We have invited them to do this through a conversation or correspondence with ...