(viii). Making Things Public - Atmospheres of Democracy

2005 MIT Press and ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany
Edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel

We live in rather discouraging times as far as political life is concerned. This is why it might be a good occasion to rethink what politics is about. The idea of this book –and of the show how of which it grew- is that politics is about things. It’s not a sphere, a profession, and occupation only but mainly a concern for things which are brought to the attention of a public. The public is not given once and for all, it’s not the people to be represented by its elected officials. In the formulations of the great American pragmatists Walter Lippmann and John Dewey, the public is to be made for each new issue, each new matter of concern. Yes public matters, but how? What is a Republic a res-publica, if we do not know how to make things public? So the question we wish to raise is : ‘What would happen if politics was made to turn around disputed things ?’ As soon as ask this question we realize that there are many other types of assemblies which are not political in the usual sense, but which gather a public around things: scientific laboratories, technical projects, supermarkets, financial arenas, churches and the disputed questions of natural resources like rivers, landscapes, animals, temperature and air. It turns out that the oldest meaning of the English word for ‘thing’ is precisely an assembly made around disputed matters of concern.
With the help of more than one hundred authors from all walks of life, this book and the show tries to reconstruct such a THING. Instead of looking for democracy only in the official ‘sphere’ of professional politics, it draws attention to the new atmospheric conditions made of a complex set of technologies, interfaces, platforms, networks and mediations allowing for things to be made public. It shows that the repertoire of attitudes and passions that we associate with taking a political stand is much too narrow. There exist in other non-Western traditions, in the old political philosophies, in our own science and technology, in the new web based spaces, in the many techniques of representation of which Parliaments are only a part, many other ways to react politically. DINGPOLITIK comes into being when objects turn into things, when opinions turn into issues, when matters of facts turn into matters of concern. For all of us.

Introductory chapter (html)

Introductory chapter (pdf) by courtesy of ZKM and MIT

(vii. Iconoclash. Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art

2002: Iconoclash. Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art, MIT Press and ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany
Edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel

This book, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Center for New Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, invokes three disparate realms in which images have assumed the role of cultural weapons. Monotheistic religions, scientific theories, and contemporary arts have struggled with the contradictory urge to produce and also destroy images and emblems. Moving beyond the image wars, ICONOCLASH shows that image destruction has always coexisted with a cascade of image production, visible in traditional Christian images as well as in scientific laboratories and the various experiments of contemporary art, music, cinema, and architecture.
While iconoclasts have struggled against icon worshippers, another history of iconophily has always been at work. Investigating this alternative to the Western obsession with image worship and destruction allows useful comparisons with other cultures, in which images play a very different role. ICONOCLASH offers a variety of experiments on how to suspend the iconoclastic gesture and to renew the movement of images against any freeze-framing.
The book includes major works by Art & Language, Willi Baumeister, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Lucas Cranach, Max Dean, Marcel Duchamp, Albrecht Dürer, Lucio Fontana, Francisco Goya, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Young Hay, Arata Isozaki, Asger Jorn, Martin Kippenberger, Imi Knoebel, Komar & Melamid, Joseph Kosuth, Gordon Matta-Clark, Tracey Moffat, Nam June Paik, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Prina, Man Ray, Sophie Ristelhueber, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and many others.

Introductory chapter (html)

Introductory chapter (pdf) by courtesy of ZKM and MIT