ABSTRACT

Responding to Heidegger’s stark warnings concerning the essence of technology, this book demonstrates art’s capacity to emancipate the life-world from globalized technological enframing.

Louise Carrie Wales presents the work of five contemporary artists – Martha Rosler, Christian Boltanski, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and collaborators Noorafshan Mirza and Brad Butler – who challenge our thinking and compel a dramatic re-positioning of social norms and hidden beliefs. The through-line is rooted in Heidegger’s question posed at the conclusion of his technology essay as understood through artworks that provides a counter to enframing while using increasingly sophisticated technological methods. The themes are political in nature and continue to have profound resonance in today’s geopolitical climate.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, aesthetics, philosophy, and visual culture.

chapter |16 pages

Introduction

chapter 3|42 pages

Martha Rosler: Bringing the War Home

Ethico-Political Collaborative Art Practice

chapter 4|49 pages

Fashioning Truth from Fiction and Memory

The Essence of Truth Interpreted Through the Work of Boltanski and Wodiczko

chapter 5|51 pages

Technologized Truth

The Ambiguity of Truth/Non-Truth in the Work of Mirza and Butler

chapter |8 pages

Conclusion