Ethereal Nexus The Unveiling Of A Mindset

As the author of this book, I invited you to go through the maze of my changing views on a variety of topics. And the topics may seem random and unrelated to each other, but the discussion is surely valuable. The conclusions given by me are not the statement of ultimate truths, but rather expressions of the changing nature of thought process. You'll find my thoughts on topics ranging from the deep to the natural, from the personal to the global. It's important to understand that these mindsets are not fixed opinions, but rather samples of what I believe is true about various aspects of various topics. They are pieces developed by the different aspects of each issue that have crossed my mind, a complex mix created through instances, interactions, and thoughts. Consider this an invitation for discussion rather than a declaration of definitive facts as we progress through these chapters. Perspectives are flexible to change with evolution. What you'll read here aren't principles, but rather the changing boundaries of my thought process. I request you, dear reader, to approach my ideas with an open mind in an attitude of learning and inquiry. Just as landscapes change as we travel, I hope so can our viewpoints as we relate with a variety of views. May this book serve as an opportunity for your own thoughts, bringing about discussions, and maybe analyzing your own views. So, let us begin on this logical exploration together.

Technology has extended its reach to the human body, not just in a literal sense, through implants, transplants and technological substitutes for biological organs, but in a more figurative sense too. Technological infrastructure and the institutions of a technified society today determine what perception is, how we communicate and what forms of human relationship with the natural world are possible. A fundamental new conception of technology is urgently needed. Technology can no longer be seen as a means for efficiently attaining pre-established ends. Rather, it must be seen as a total structure which makes new forms of human action and human relationship possible, while limiting the possibilities of others. In Invasive Technification, acclaimed German philosopher Gernot Böhme offers a reading of technology that explores the many dimensions in which technology presents challenges for modern human beings. It is a book about the preservation of humanity and humane values under the demanding conditions of a technically advanced civilisation and makes a major contribution to the contemporary philosophy of technology.

‘Prose this powerful could wake the dead’ – Observer Crossing a century of Eastern European history, The Lazarus Project is a profound exploration of alienation and the immigrant experience from Aleksandar Hemon, author of The World and All That It Holds. On 2 March 1908, Lazarus Averbuch, a young Russian Jewish immigrant to Chicago, tried to deliver a letter to the city’s Chief of Police. He was shot dead. After the shooting, it was claimed he was an anarchist assassin and an agent of foreign operatives who wanted to bring the United States to its knees. His sister, Olga, was left alone and bereft in a city seething with tension. A century later, two friends become obsessed with the truth about Lazarus and decide to travel to his birthplace. As the stories intertwine, a world emerges in which everything – and nothing – has changed . . . ‘This is easily Hemon’s best work to date, an intricately tessellated portrait of flight, emigration, and the meaning of home’ – Evening Standard

Since the 1990s, critics and curators have broadly accepted the notion that participatory art is the ultimate political art: that by encouraging an audience to take part an artist can promote new emancipatory social relations. Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson. Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as "social practice." Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Pawe? Althamer and Paul Chan. Since her controversial essay in Artforum in 2006, Claire Bishop has been one of the few to challenge the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art. In Artificial Hells, she not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims made for these projects, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism.

Andrea Cornwall is Professor of Anthropology and Development in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. --

This publication is based on the discussions of the 2004 Global Colloquium on Research and Higher Education Policy of the UNESCO Forum for Higher Education, Research and Knowledge, held in Paris in December 2004. It contains contributions from 17 international experts in the field of higher education which explore the global rise of the 'knowledge society' and its implications for higher education and for sustainable human development in the future.

Most Canadians are city dwellers, a fact often unacknowledged by twentieth-century Canadian films, with their preference for themes of wilderness survival or rural life. Modernist Canadian films tend to support what film scholar Jim Leach calls “the nationalist-realist project,” a documentary style that emphasizes the exoticism and mythos of the land. Over the past several decades, however, the hegemony of Anglo-centrism has been challenged by francophone and First Nations perspectives and the character of cities altered by a continued influx of immigrants and the development of cities as economic and technological centers. No longer primarily defined through the lens of rural nostalgia, Canadian urban identity is instead polyphonic, diverse, constructed through multiple discourses and mediums, an exchange rather than a strict orientation. Taking on the urban as setting and subject, filmmakers are ideally poised to create and reflect multiple versions of a single city. Examining fourteen Canadian films produced from 1989 to 2007, including Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal (1989), Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo (1992), Mina Shum’s Double Happiness (1994), Clément Virgo’s Rude (1995), and Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg (2007), Film and the City is the first comprehensive study of Canadian film and “urbanity”—the totality of urban culture and life. Drawing on film and urban studies and building upon issues of identity formation in Canadian studies, Melnyk considers how filmmakers, films, and urban audiences experience, represent, and interpret urban spatiality, visuality, and orality. In this way, Film and the City argues that Canadian narrative film of the postmodern period has aided in articulating a new national identity.