Full Description
Interdisciplinary in design and concept, Speculation, Now illuminates unexpected convergences between images, concepts, and language. Artwork is interspersed among essays that approach speculation and progressive change from surprising perspectives. A radical cartographer asks whether "the speculative" can be represented on a map. An ethnographer investigates religious possession in Islam to contemplate states between the divine and the seemingly human. A financial technologist queries understandings of speculation in financial markets. A multimedia artist and activist considers the relation between social change and assumptions about the conditions to be changed, and an architect posits purposeful neglect as political strategy. The book includes an extensive glossary with more than twenty short entries in which scholars contemplate such speculation-related notions as insurance, hallucination, prophecy, the paradox of beginnings, and states of half-knowledge. The book's artful, nonlinear design mirrors and reinforces the notion of contingency that animates it. By embracing speculation substantively, stylistically, seriously, and playfully, Speculation, Now reveals its subversive and critical potential.
Artists and essayists include William Darity Jr., Filip De Boeck, Boris Groys, Hans Haacke, Darrick Hamilton, Laura Kurgan, Lin + Lam, Gary Lincoff, Lize Mogel, Christina Moon, Stefania Pandolfo, Satya Pemmaraju, Mary Poovey, Walid Raad, Sherene Schostak, Robert Sember, and Srdjan Jovanović Weiss.
Published by Duke University Press and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School
Contents
Foreword / Carin Kuoni 10
Speculation, Now / Vyjayanthi Venuturupalli Rao 14
Design Notes / Prem Krishnamurthy 26
Visible and Invisible Sides of Reproduction / Boris Groys 33
Dreams, Magic, and Mirrors: More Histories of Extraversion and Speculation in Central Africa / Filip De Boeck 40
Hedge/Hog: Speculative Action in Financial Markets / Satya Pemmaraju 52
Preface to the third edition / Walid Raad 60
The Ethics of Deep Time / Trevor Paglen 70
Colors, Cash, Fabric, and Trim: Fast-fashion Families in Downtown L.A. / Christina Moon 73
Synchronicities / Sherene Schostak 86
Post-Racial America? Addressing Racial Inequality / Darrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr. 92
Psychics Special / Lin + Lam 104
Speculation with Data: Remittances, Refugees, and Migration / Laura Kurgan 112
Diary: Towards an Architecture of Balkanization / Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss 122
Image: Visual Speculation and Political Change / Victoria Hattam 139
Night Thoughts: Unintended Consequences in the Modern Economy / Mary Poovey 142
On the Matter of Change: Three Scenes of Collective Action / Robert Sember 146
over/sight / Lize Mogul 156
The Barzakh of the Image and the Speculative Scene of Possession / Stefania Pandolfo 168
Taking a Trip / Gary Lincoff 188
The Paradox of Beginnings / Angie Keefer and Lucy Skaer 204
Speculation, After the Fact / Arjun Appadurai 206
!?!?. . . / Hans Haacke 210
Speculation Now: The Expanded Field 220
Biographies 234
Acknowledgments 250
Vera List Center for Art and Politics 252
Considering Forgiveness 254
Index 256
Photo Credits 270
Colophon 272
