Networks

The dawn of the electronic media age in the 1960s began a cultural shift from themodernist grid and its determination of projection and representation to the fluid structures andcircuits of the network, presenting art with new challenges and possibilities. This anthologyconsiders art at the center of network theory, from the 1960s to thepresent.

Artists have used the "space of flows" as a basis for creatingutopian scenarios, absurd yet functional propositions or holistic planetary visions. Others haveexplored the economies of reciprocity and the ethics of generosity, in works that address changedconditions of codependence and new sites of social negotiation. The "infra-power" of thenetwork has been a departure point for self-organized counterculture and the creation of new typesof agency. And a "poetics of connectivity" runs through a diverse range of work thataddresses the social and material complexity of networks through physical structures and ambientinstallation, the mapping of the Internet, or the development of robots and software that take onthe functions of artist or curator.

Artists surveyedincludeJoseph Beuys, Ursula Biemann, Heath Bunting, Critical Art Ensemble, FernandDeligny, Peter Fend, Gego, Jobim Jochimsen, Koncern, Christine Kozlov, Pia Lindman, Mark Lombardi,Diana McCarty, Marta Minujin, Aleksandra Mir, Tanja Ostojic, Ola Pehrson, Walid Raad, Arturas Raila,Hito Steyerl, Tomaso Tozzi, Suzanne Treister, Ultra Red, Wolf Vostell, StephenWillats

Writers include Jane Bennett, Hakim Bey, Luc Boltanski,Manuel Castells, Eve Chiapello, Guy Debord, Umberto Eco, Okwui Enwezor, Michael Hardt, Bruno Latour,Marshall McLuhan, Marcel Mauss, Reza Negarestani, Antonio Negri, Sadie Plant, Lane Relyea, CraigSaper, Saskia Sassen, Pit Schultz, Steven Shaviro, Tiziana Terranova, Paolo Virno

Lars Bang Larsen is an art historian and international curator based in Barcelona and Copenhagen. His books include The Model: Palle Nielsen's A Model for a Qualitative Society and, with Soren Andreasen, The Critical Mass of Mediation.