e-flux Journal #153
<p>Wars can be waged in various forms, from cold to hot, from trade wars to psychological warfare to outright bombardment and genocide. The techniques available for negotiating unresolvable differences can seem endless. But it would also seem that the material of war’s underbelly is capable of a strange expressivity. In this issue, Mary Walling Blackburn takes on the genre of “trench art”—objects crafted from war’s detritus by soldiers addressing material or spiritual needs, or by prisoners or civilians reflecting on the circumstances of war and confinement. In their detailed making and decorative use, Blackburn finds a contorted, diagonal relation to fine art objects. If trench art often miniaturizes the psychic magnitude of war, what would a proportional relation look like, say, if the estimated millions of tons of rubble, human remains, and unexploded ordinance in Gaza caused by US arms could be materially reabsorbed as an “unholy amalgam” of trench art for US art collections, as collective burial and real consequence? If spent bullet shells, weapons, or other war detritus can become decorative trench art, artist Kim Jones’s Mudman on the issue’s cover demonstrates how the psychological trauma of war can transform into material for art.</p> <p><strong>Editorial<br /> </strong> Editors</p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Mother Is Dead, Long Live (m)Othercare: Care as Alterity, an Introduction<br /> </strong>iLiana Fokianaki</p> <p class="p1"><strong>From the Organizational Point of View: Bogdanov and the Augustinian Left, Part 2<br /> </strong>Rodrigo Nunes</p> <p class="p1"><strong>Wound, Whittle, and Peach<br /> </strong>Mary Walling Blackburn</p> <p class="p1"><strong>An Introduction to Machine and Sovereignty: For a Planetary Thinking<br /> </strong> Yuk Hui</p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Martian<br /> </strong> Anton Vidokle</p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Test of Communism<br /> </strong> Jasper Bernes</p> <p class="p1"><strong>ECHO — LOCATION: On Properties, Bass, Bounty, Sunshine State, and Exodus<br /> </strong>Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa<strong><br /> </strong></p>
Contributors: Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle, iLiana Fokianaki, Rodrigo Nunes, Mary Walling Blackburn, Yuk Hui, Jasper Bernes, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa
Editors: Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle
Managing Editor: Minh Nguyen
Copy Editor: Michael Andrews
Associate Editor: Andreas Petrossiants
Art Director: Peter Sit
Contributing Editor: Serubiri Moses, Elvia Wilk, Evan Calder Williams
Poetry Editor: Simone White
Graphic Designer: Jeff Ramsey
PDF Designer: Mengyi Qian
Programmer: Adam Florin, Keyian Vafai
Part of: e-flux journal
ISSN: 21641625