America
7th October 2023
'Things in process ... objects out of place and time.' Frances Lightbound's exhibition Tectonics at the John David Mooney Foundation in Chicago, reconfigures and re-enacts the languages of architectonics and manages to refuse the colonial configurations of power and brute strength in structural materials and components. Pia Singh reviews and finds a striking refinement in these rare and enigmatic arrangements.
29th March 2023
Is 'dwelling' always an invasion of some type? In the stoical approach, which is the inescapable ethos of our contemporary of the ecological and the sustainable, it seems so, yes. Here, in appropriately ossianic mode for these end-of-times, a paratactical Murdo Macdonald muses on the hybrid in Chicago.
23rd January 2021
A major thinker and innovator in the understanding of the significance of Cognitive Capitalism, US artist and activist Warren Neidich has worked across fields from neurobiology and psychology to art and architecture. Here he probes, proposes and defines neuroaesthetics as an area of critical , politically engaged and creative thought.
14th January 2021
January 6th, Epiphany in the Christian calendar, is most commonly marked here by the taking down of the pagan midwinter decorations. This year, on the day that gifts were brought from the east for the baby Jesus, some strange kings and magicians visited the home of the American Republic. Owen Dudley Edwards tells us all we need to know, and more, about that 2020 election, and then, the Epiphany at the Capitol.
8th January 2021
Walls are being built, straits policed, high seas patrolled: in the frantic seeking after sovereignty the stranger is become a foreigner and foreigners are recast as aliens ... Storm the ramparts of the Capitol then, and ask not what we have done to them, but what they could possibly do for us? Gavin Mottram attempts to make an intervention...
20th September 2020
As conservative interests look set to capture its Supreme Court, cities convulse in class and racial conflict and the skies burn along the west coast, the American horizon has never looked darker. Should we Seek an American hero to save US? According to Tom King’s recent take on the the ever-popular Batman, probably best if we didn’t.
1st May 2020
Some apparent tendencies and possibilities in political thinking have already emerged in the pandemic situation –as seen by current commentators in blogs, opinion columns etc – can they be viewed a broader political and historical context yet?
13th December 2019
It seems appropriate to publish a long meditation on the nature and history of federalism on the day of a British election where Brexit is the pressing issue and the […]
SENSE AND SENSITIVITY:
Killing History
Owen Dudley Edwards