Law and art are oftentimes perceived as standing in opposition, and even seen in terms. The first is dismissed as provincial, rigid, and bureaucratic, while the latter is repeatedly characterized as global, flexible, and dynamic. Yet, closer observation and analysis reveal hidden links and layers, and substantial preoccupation by both legal and art practitioners in the visual and in the judicial. It is through the unraveling of spaces, gaps, and lacunae in which both fields of practice and knowledge intersect that this publication sets in motion an exploration of influences and interactions between law and art. Offering a new critical approach ...

More than ever, architects today are called upon to build gestural landmarks and grandiose signature buildings. But architecture was never only about building. It is also about the flows of people, information, and resources that shape space. Today, the practice of architecture often confronts situations where these flows cannot be reduced to modernist managerial approaches to systematizing, structuring, and mastering the potentials of space. In a two-part “Architecture as Intangible Infrastructure” issue of e-flux journal edited together with Nikolaus Hirsch, the intangible and immaterial flows that today appear to exceed the language of building proper are shown by a number of ...

The texts gathered in this issue of e-flux journal reflect upon the censorship of Cuban artists that has taken place in the shadow of the political negotiations between the island and the United States. They are the words of Cuban intellectuals who have chosen to respond to erasures brought about by overzealous state authority, a politics of complicity among Cuban artists, and the strategic blindness of Cuba’s enthusiasts. Editorial—“Cuba: The Fading of a Subcontinental Dream” Coco Fusco The Forbidden Symbols Ernesto Hernández Busto Letter from Prison Danilo Maldonado Machado (El Sexto) Apotheosis Now Iván de la Nuez Condemn Us, It Does Not Matter: Art Will Absolve Us Juan Carlos Cremata ...

The word “data” comes from the Latin dare, which means “give.” This evolves into datum, which signifies something given. Data is what is given; Big Data, many given somethings. Gifts are given, too, but it’s hard to think of data as a gift—and nearly impossible to think of Big Data as a Big Gift, though it certainly appears that way to some… Editorial Editors A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition Hito Steyerl Drone Form: Word and Image at the End of Empire Nathan K. Hensley Method without Methodology: Data and the Digital Humanities Lindsay Caplan Connoisseurship and Critique Ben Davis Enantiomorphs in Hyperspace: Living and Dying on the ...

Albert Speer is one of the most infamous architects in history. During his time working for the Nazi Party he was responsible for designing the Reich Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld stadium in which the Nuremberg rallies took place, as well as being in charge of Germany’s war production during the Second World War and being slated to plan the massive reconstruction Berlin as Germania. Yet by emphasising his detachment from the general conditions he was able to avoid the death sentence after the war. While his is an extreme example, it offers a compelling jumping off point to explore the wider ...

This conversation is the first one of an Archipelago series in the Western Balkans. Recorded in Sarajevo with Selma Porobić, it introduces the historical context of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ethnic cleansing of the Bosniak population by the Serbian militias, and the 2 million displaced people inside and outside the country. Twenty years after the Dayton Peace Agreements, many refugees have not yet returned, often because of local and regional strategies discouraging if not preventing this return. The second part of the conversation addresses the geographical position of the Western Balkans, at the gates of “Fortress ...

Liberation theologian Father Paul Butler discusses the radical interpretations of the Christian message.

In this conversation, Miriam Ticktin and I talk about the problematic characteristics of discourses and legislation that particularize figures of innocence. Suffering and sick bodies are particularly subject to this process that distinguish innocent subjects from their necessary corollary, guilty ones. Miriam unfolds for us this aspect of her work regarding migrant’s claims for humanitarian exceptions and asylum in France. We talk of the role of the medical expertise in this context, as well as NGOs and other humanitarian institutions’ self-claim of “apolitical” function contrasting their particularism for suffering women or children for instance. We ends this conversation with the illustrative example of ...

A project by students at CALARTS with Nancy Buchanan, Sam Durant and Martha Rosler This book is one result of a class we taught at the California Institute of the Arts in the Spring of 2007. We began discussing the idea of teaching a class together the prior year, to see how young artists would address the human rights abuses and illegal wars the U.S. Government was (and is) committing so openly and, thus far, with near impunity. As an initial focus, Nancy proposed that students up-date, re-make or somehow respond to Martha Rosler’s prescient 1983 video tape, A Simple Case ...

This special issue of OnCurating has been conceived with the intention of inquiring into the relation between law and art as it is manifested in a variety of recent artistic and curatorial projects and legal writings. Based on the notion that the law holds an abiding influence on all terrains of society, our aim was to unravel tactics and mechanisms used by art and legal practitioners alike as they deconstruct, reconstruct, and appropriate legal matter and form…

This relatively long conversation with Robbie McVeigh & Bill Rolston only evokes fragments of their comprehensive book “Anois ar theacht an tSamhraidh”: Ireland, Colonialism, and the Unfinished Revolution, which resituates Irish history within the global history of colonialism. We talk about Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger), the Irish Revolution, the Partition, as well as the contemporary forms of struggle and internationalist solidarity in the North of Ireland. Special thanks to Osloob for his precious help with editing the quality of this episode’s sound. Robbie McVeigh & Bill Rolston are the authors of “Anois ar theacht an tSamhraidh”: Ireland, Colonialism, and the Unfinished Revolution (Beyond the ...

It is arguable that justice is as sweet as revenge, or even sweeter. Justice, after all, is civilized revenge meted with a communal consent. Humanity has a raving appetite for Justice. Nigeria, like many countries, is however starved of justice. Justice cannot be found in the rusted lead-pipes of judicial bureaucracy, in the cavernous courtrooms with termite-eaten wooden docks. Justice has retired from these places. Justice has relocated to the jungle, to the hearts of hapless civilians, to the aggregation of market stalls, to rundown beer parlours and still, Justice is neither satisfied nor safe. Justice is chased, taunted, trampled upon ...