Boris Groys is a distinguished art critic, media theorist, and philosopher whose work investigates the intricate relationship between art, philosophy, and technology. Throughout his extensive academic career, marked by professorships at prestigious institutions globally, Groys delves deeply into themes of modernity, the artistic avant-garde, and the pervasive influence of media on contemporary thought. His theoretical frameworks offer profound insights into the complexities of artistic discourse and its evolution in the digital era. His contribution to literature lies in his persistent exploration of the boundaries between art and philosophy.
Exploring radical biopolitical utopianism, this collection features key texts from Russian Cosmism, many newly available in English. Emerging alongside Marxism, Cosmism sought transformative change, envisioning a world free from death and limitless in cosmic exploration. Founded by Nikolai Fedorov, this movement inspired a diverse array of artists and thinkers, influencing Soviet politics and technology until its suppression in the 1930s. As contemporary discussions merge philosophy with science, the relevance of these Cosmist ideas resurfaces, inviting renewed engagement.
Contemporary art, as well as our society in general, is?according to the diagnosis of the interdisciplinary art festival steirischer herbst '21?in a dead end. The Way Out of ... features texts by international contributors to the festival's discussion program that outlines ways out of the White Cube, failed political art and an unrestrained digital capitalism, and shows new paths for climate justice, a more critical race theory and new activists. Accessible and pointily written, this reader offers rich food for thought on the multiple crises of our times.00Every year for a month, STEIRISCHER HERBST, the oldest interdisciplinary festival of contemporary art in Europe, turns the city of Graz and the province of Styria in Austria into a parcours of installative and performative works. Since 1968, the festival has offered a platform for public debates, critical positions, and dialogues between the arts.
Modern history is a history of aesthetizations - and every aesthetization raises a claim of protection. We aestheticize and want to protect almost everything, including Earth, oceans, the atmosphere, rare animal species and exotic plants. Humans are no exception. They also present themselves as objects of contemplation that deserve admiration and care. For some time, artists and intellectuals struggled for the sovereign right to present themselves to society in their own way - to become self-created works of art. Today everybody has not only a right but also an obligation to practice self-design. We are responsible for the way we present ourselves to others - and we cannot get rid of this aesthetic responsibility.However, we are not able to produce our own bodies. Before we begin to practice self-design, we find ourselves already designed by the gaze of others. That is why the practice of self-design mostly takes a critical and confrontational turn. We want to bring others to see us in the way we want to be seen - not only during our earthly life but also after our death. This is a complicated struggle, and the aim of this book is to describe and analyze it.
The success of ?social distancing? as a cure-all to the COVID-19 pandemic proves that neoliberalism has created an insurmountable distance to the very notion of society itself. This rejection is best embodied in Margaret Thatcher?s infamous dictum ?There is no society,? which supplies the title of this anthology, with a crucial question mark added. How can we deal with the paradoxical mix of solitude and imposed togetherness that the pandemic entails? How can culture and critical discourse even continue when public0space has been shut down upon the advice of epidemiologists? How do we grasp the new political constellations arising today? Such are the questions tackled by the authors of this anthology, based on the discussion program of the Paranoia TV edition of the steirischer herbst festival.00Exhibition: steirischer herbst ?20?Paranoia TV, Graz, Austria (2020).
A grand hotel on the edge of the abyss? The phrase that provided the title and the agenda for steirischer herbst '19-Grand Hotel Abyss came from the pen of the philosopher Georg Lukacs. In the early 1930's he used this striking metaphor to describe the attitude of the European intellectual and cultural scene who continued to party in an uninhibited, hedonistic manner, despite the looming rise of fascism. Doomsday scenarios viewed from a snug sofa, along with the culinary and cultural comfort zones known as "Genusshauptstadte" (pleasure capitals), demonstrate that the apocalypse can be shaped in a thoroughly pleasant and exciting manner today. This reader, accompanying the 52nd edition of the steirischer herbst, tracks these observations and explores the actual relevance of this historical context, as well as the significance of critical artistic attitudes, in essays, artists' texts, and numerous illustrations.0 Every year for a month, steirischer herbst, the oldest interdisciplinary festival of contemporary art in Europe, turns the city of Graz and the province of Styria in Austria into a parcours of installative and performative works. Since 1968, the festival has offered a platform for public debates, critical positions, and dialogues between the arts.00Exhibition: City of Graz, Austria (19.09.-13.10.2019)
The leading art theorist takes on art in the age of the Internet In the early twentieth century, art and its institutions came under critique from a new democratic and egalitarian spirit. The notion of works of art as sacred objects was decried and subsequently they would be understood merely as things. This meant an attack on realism, as well as on the traditional preservative mission of the museum. Acclaimed art theorist Boris Groys argues this led to the development of “direct realism”: an art that would not produce objects, but practices (from performance art to relational aesthetics) that would not survive. But for more than a century now, every advance in this direction has been quickly followed by new means of preserving art’s distinction. In this major new work, Groys charts the paradoxes produced by this tension, and explores art in the age of the thingless medium, the Internet. Groys claims that if the techniques of mechanical reproduction gave us objects without aura, digital production generates aura without objects, transforming all its materials into vanishing markers of the transitory present.
