Bøger af Diedrich Diederichsen

An examination of the relationship between art and cybernetics and their intersections, with works that use the powerlessness of art. Cybernetics of the Poor examines the relationship between art and cybernetics and their intersections in the past and present. From the late 1940s on, the term cybernetics began to be used to describe self-regulating systems that measure, anticipate, and react in order to intervene in changing conditions. Initially relevant mostly in the fields of administration, planning, criminology, and early ecology, under digital capitalism cybernetics has since become an economic factor (particularly in the realm of big data). In such a cybernetic totality, art must respond to a new situation: a cybernetics of the poor. Cybernetics of the Poor presents work that uses the powerlessness of art--its poverty--vis-à-vis the cybernetic machine to propose countermodels: work that is both recent and historical by artists who believed in cybernetics as a participatory, playful practice or were pioneers in delineating a counter-cybernetics. How much of what Thomas Pynchon termed "counterforce" exists within art when it is conceived as a cybernetics of the poor?

Essays, artistic text contributions, and curatorial statements on the German writer Hubert Fichte's fascination with Afro-diasporic arts and religions.Can the ethnological observations and feelings on Afro-diasporic cultures from a German writer be "restituted"? What are the possibilities and limits of using self-reflection and gay sexuality as research tools? Since 2017, the exhibition and publication project Hubert Fichte: Love and Ethnology has followed this question through Hubert Fichte's cycle of novels History of Sensitivity. Fascinated by Afro-diasporic arts and religions, Fichte (1935-1986) traveled to cities including Salvador da Bahia, Santiago de Chile, Dakar, New York, and Lisbon. Translations of Fichte's novels became the basis for critical local receptions and new artistic works in these cities. This book brings together essays, artistic text contributions, and curatorial statements from the projects in Salvador da Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, Dakar, New York, and Lisbon, as well as extensive photo series depicting the artistic works from the exhibition at Haus der Kulturen der Welt.Love and Ethnology is a collaboration between Goethe-Institut and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, supported by S. Fischer Stiftung and S. Fischer Verlag.

Bettina Semmer wurde in den 1980er Jahren im Umfeld der "Neuen Wilden" bekannt. Vor dem Hintergrund einer noch fast ausschließlich von Männern dominierten Kunstszene entstanden Gemälde, und Filme oder fanden Interventionen statt. Schon damals zeigte sich die ihr Werk bis heute prägende Auseinandersetzung mit - nicht nur - weiblicher Körperlichkeit. Dabei thematisiert sie Erotik und Sexualität stets in Hinblick auf das Psychologische und Politische. Auch befasst sie sich immer wieder mit traumatischen Erfahrungen und deren physischen Auswirkungen.Die erste umfassende Monografie zu Bettina Semmer legt den Schwerpunkt auf ihr bildnerisches und vor allem malerisches Schaffen. Ein ausführlicher aktueller Beitrag von Ludwig Seyfarth befasst sich mit den "Körperbildern" in ihrem Werk. Verschiedene, bis in die 1980er Jahre zurückreichende, teilweise erstmals, teilweise wiederveröffentlichte Textbeiträge (u.a. von Diedrich Diederichsen, Svenja Grosser, Ramona Heinlein, Phil King und Gislind Nabakowski) dokumentieren unterschiedliche Facetten in der Rezeption ihres vielschichtigen Werkes. Über 175 Abbildungen zeigen Werke aus fünf Jahrzehnten.