Julia Gwendolyn Schneider: About the New Zealand artist group et al. and their aesthetics of information
Amir Vodka

There is an unspoken consensus that the bulk of contemporary art can be categorised towards the left or the left-leaning liberal end of the political spectrum. Although party-political attempts to instrumentalise art have become more circumspect, there nonetheless appears to be an implicit agreement that art should serve to promote an enlightened society. But what about the right-wing fringes? For many years now these fringes of the political scene have enjoyed an alarming degree of growth, in no small part as a consequence of debates on asylum, values and societal issues, yet art and culture seem helpless in the face of this development. Why does an artistic practice that subscribes to an underlying notion of democracy find it so difficult to address right-wing populist tendencies? What are the fears of deeper understanding and closer engagement that shape responses to a "vox populi" that is anything but liberal? What type of artistic methods might be conceived in order to get to grips with the persistent lurch to the right?


Contents:

Julia Gwendolyn Schneider: About the New Zealand artist group et al. and their aesthetics of information
Amir Vodka: Seeing Shoting Crying – about new forms of warfare and the reversal of victim and offender
Christian Höller in Conversation with Steve Goodman, London-based electronic music artist, DJ, and owner of the Hyperdub record label
Charlotte Bank: About the media artist Salah Saouli
Cédric Vincent: On William Klein's documentary about the first panafrican cultural festival in 1969 in Algier
Franz Thalmair: About the Vienna-based artist collective VVORK
Lawrence Grossberg: Some preliminary conjunctural thoughts on countercultures
Vyacheslav Akhunov: Works 1974-1991
Edit András: The Question of Nationalism is Unavoidable – the Hungarian art scene and their responses to right-wing populist tendencies
Peter Friedl: About the colonial history of Italy and the politics of remembrance
Fadi Toufiq: The New Killer – a conversation project about suicide bombers
Jochen Becker: Unholy Wars – Osama Bin Laden´s Bodyguards, Jihad and the war against war
"Changing Channels – Art and Television 1963-1987" – selected examples from the exhibition at Mumok, Vienna
Matthias Dusini: "Changing Channels" - about the beginnings of media activism
Christoph Schäfer: Annette Wehrmann – An Obituary


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