e-flux Journal #63

<p>We have a soft spot for people, for our own humanity. We learn to nurture this soft spot through art, through philosophy, through democracy, through our notions of justice or the rights of humans. We learn about the good in the things that are done by the people, for the people, through the people, in the name of the people.</p> <p>But it’s getting cold out there. Something in this setup is shifting below our feet. Something is making the image of the people fuzzy, increasingly vague—a floating signifier missing its referent. Now militants who might have once fought for an idea are increasingly self-interested. Artworks are starting to function more like investment vehicles that no longer need to be seen by people. And some say that our most recent stage of planetary evolution—our current geological epoch—is distinguished mainly by the permanently destructive effects of human industry on the biosphere, in species extinction, deforestation, pollution, radiation, and so on. Which is to say that humanity can no longer be taken as the solution to anything. On the contrary, and from the perspective of the earth, humanity looks increasingly like the problem…</p> <p><b>Editorial</b><br /> Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle</p> <p><b>Conditions of Visuality Under the Anthropocene and Images of the Anthropocene to Come </b><br /> Irmgard Emmelhainz</p> <p><strong>Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene (On Alexander Bogdanov and Kim Stanley Robinson)</strong><br /> McKenzie Wark</p> <p><b>Duty-Free Art</b><br /> Hito Steyerl</p> <p><b>To Make a World, Part III: Stateless Democracy</b><br /> Jonas Staal</p> <p><strong>All That is Certain Vanishes Into Air: Tracing the Anabasis of the Japanese Red Army</strong><br /> Naeem Mohaiemen</p> <p><strong>Circulation and Withdrawal, Part II: Withdrawal</strong><br /> Simon Sheikh</p> <p><b>Joséphin Péladan: A Proto-Curator?</b><br /> Beti Žerovc</p>