Cartographies of the Absolute

CADRE Lecture Series
Free Public Lecture by
Dr. Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths, University of London)Tuesday 23rd March 2010, 6.00pm, MK045

Postgraduate, Research and Enterprise Administrative Assistant MK505 I School of Art & Design Molineux Street Wolverhampton WV1 1DT

Cartographies of the Absolute, abstract and image

Revisiting the challenge posed by Fredric Jameson in his 1989 article on 'cognitive mapping', this presentation will consider the recent surge in attempts, across popular entertainment and contemporary art, to provide models, diagrams or narratives that might allow us to orient ourselves around the world system. From the multi-dimensional narrative exploration of the political economy of urban dispossession in The Wire to 'commodity-chain' films like Lord of War, from Mark Lombardi's diagrams of institutional collusion to Allan Sekula's Fish Story, the desire for an aesthetic that would provide knowledge of the totality seems widespread.