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- Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011
Poster, The - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011
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Sacredness in Russian Socialist Iconography before and after 1917. Invention of a new revolutionary tradition, starting from the old one
By Dunja DogoMy investigation aims at describing how a particular miscellany of symbols and typologies, crossing the Christian legacy (i.e. icon painting), exploded in revolutionary Russia and increased at the outbreak of the Civil War (1918−1921). For this purpose I will draw attention not only to selected posters of the period, but also to a film chronicle recorded in November 1917. This footage shows how the Bolsheviks first drew on the bloody October in Moscow in order to cast the revolutionary experience as a personal sacrifice in the cause of collective ‘redemption’. Bolsheviks actually continued a practice of syncretism which was previously widely exercised in propaganda for the war loan, not only by the Provisional Government, but even by the tsarist establishment. In the period between February and October, very popular sacred archetypes drawn from Last Judgment iconography tended to be modified and adapted to revolutionary themes by various Russian socialist elites in the context of a battle for conquering the old symbols. The keynotes of the Second International were equally reasserted through religious images by the Bolsheviks in power, to reach the peasant soldier.
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The non-stop ‘capture’: the politics of looking in postmodernity
More LessThis article examines our ability to constantly capture life on the move with the convergence of technologies. The incorporation of recording facilities in mobile telephony and our ability to connect to the Internet via mobile devices enable us to share images on a global platform. The mobile body becomes one that can capture images on the move. This ‘civilian gaze’ creates a ‘glass house’ society in which pervasive watching and recording can create spaces of accountability, surveillance, risk, politics of pity, and denigration of humanity. Mobile communications create a politics of looking in postmodernity where both new sociabilities and risks are created with the embedding of these technologies in our everyday lives. This article examines the consequences of this non-stop capture and civilian gaze for humanity in the immediate and distant future.
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Generous, but no’ social (twenty year voyage beyond the bath-tub)
By Alan DunnThis article reflects upon two projects in Glasgow (1990–1991) and Liverpool (2008) self-initiated by artist and lecturer Alan Dunn. Both projects evolved from and were disseminated in the context of daily public transport journeys. As thousands of people are repetitively shuttled around cities and artists sit amongst them, grey areas of mental spaces open up, spaces that Dunn proposes are conducive to creative experiences. He reflects upon art away from the studio, home, work or commerce place, when the act of moving is passive and responsibility-free. The two projects highlight certain themes, strategies, problems and rhizomic thinking around public art. Is it public if one does not know what the public think of it? Can it be public if it is neither social nor conversational? Are the envisaged stories stronger than those overheard? Can it be public if it is in the background and goes unnoticed? Is public an intention rather than a state?
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