95th caa annual conference, new york

Going Astray: Network Transformation and the Asymmetries of Globalisation
Research presentation at the 95th CAA Annual Conference in New York

Although we know a great deal about the abstract dynamics of interaction networks and transient aggregations of spatial practices through instruments like social network analyses and actor-network-theories, there is little knowledge about the actual effects and future transformations of the emerging hybrid forms of network movements as they have only very recently started to bring together actors from such diverse fields as migrant communities, art biennials, geocultural production, architectural cartography and a plurality of other collectivities and practices on a global scale. This is in many ways a fragile and multi-compositional formation whose work has begun to counterbalance the homogenising forces of ‘global culture’ and the exclusion of social and cultural actors on both theoretical and practical levels.

The transformation of urban social networks, especially those whose work addresses issues of cultural difference, is a relatively new phenomenon and not much work has been produced which critically examines the interfacing of these networks with mainstream cultural economies defined by the ‘cultural turn’ of late capitalism. Our research looks at the detailed character and the dynamics of the relation between the culturalisation of contemporary global economy and the emergent heterogeneous networked cultures. How do the latter sit amidst a growing complex of media and consumption architectures on the one hand and an equally growing cultural sector funded by private companies and transnational bodies on the other hand? What kind of interfaces are developed between these actors? What are the effects of mutual contaminations between them? And how can the emergent forms of networked cultures retain their transformative potential? We locate these questions through a set of interrelated investigations into the challenges that transformation and relationality pose on networked cultures.

Globalism and Its Discontents

Thursday, February 15, 2:30 PM–5:00 PM
Trianon Ballroom, 3rd Floor, Hilton New York

Chairs: Aruna D’Souza, Binghamton University; Tom McDonough, Binghamton University

Where We Come From: Mobility and Belonging in Contemporary Art
T.J. Demos, University College, London

Going Astray: Network Transformations and the Asymmetries of Globalization
Helge Mooshammer, Thinkarchitecture; Peter Mörtenböck, Goldsmiths College, University of London

Collectivity and Its Discontents: Rethinking the Global and the Local in Current Art Practice
Grant Kester, University of California, San Diego

Discontinuous States: Art on the Border
Krista Geneviève Lynes, San Francisco Art Institute

From Nomadism to Cosmopolitanism
James Meyer, Emory University

CAA – College Art Association / 95th Annual Conference, New York City, 14 – 17 February 2007