68 MARCH 2016
Books in Brief
nel—what writer Gene McHugh, citing artist Kevin Bew-
ersdorf, describes as building “persona empires” rather than
undertaking a practice that is object- or project-based. Price
anticipated this phenomenon, dismissing it as “lifestyle art.”
But centering on identity now seems less an advertisement
for one’s “artist” persona than a response to one’s vulnerability
to digital manipulation at multiple levels. Everyone on social
media makes “work” that invites response and elaborates repu-
tation as an asset. Exposure on networks is less a goal than the
newly dominant artistic practice.
For tech companies, digitized identity makes subjectiv-
ity legible as data that they can expropriate. But for individuals,
who must now present themselves through digital rendering, the
process is not rational or self-evident; it is an intensification of
self-consciousness, filtered through varying levels of exposure.
The “norm” these days is to consciously shape and burnish one’s
Internet image. Aspiring “artists,” then, can no longer distinguish
themselves from regular users by being more adept with digital
tools and dispersion strategies. They can only but be more available
to the global digital flux, more open to manipulation and promis-
cuous reuse. Amid this proliferation, identity gets chewed up, but
the artist’s body—the wellspring of vision—remains resistant to
digital erasure or appropriation, a physical entity stubbornly apart
from digital circulation or parody.
Radical submission rather than resistance has, then, become
today’s clearest “artistic” hallmark. Artists can seek distinction not
in craft or taste or elite audience access but in visceral sensitivity
to the digital environment of perpetual performance, to a con-
stant reconfiguration of the self ’s masks and layers that exceeds
the simple tricks of Photoshop.BOOKS
JULIETA ARANDA, BRIAN
KUAN WOOD and ANTON
VIDOKLE, eds.
E-flux Journal:
The Internet Does
Not ExistThe provocative title of this
book, compiled by the editors
of e-flux’s online journal,
implies the pervasive and
immaterial nature of the
Internet. Essays by Julian
Assange, Metahaven, Hans
Ulrich Obrist and Hito Steyerl
offer a sometimes cynical take
on these techy times, especially
the desire to be generously
represented on social media
and in Google searches.
Berlin, Sternberg Press, 2015; 316
pages, $15 paperback.MELANIE BÜHLER
No Internet,
No Art: A Lunch
Bytes AnthologyIn 2011, Lunch Bytes, an
online platform founded by
Amsterdam-based curator
Melanie Bühler, invited
artists and experts from dif-
ferent fields to Washington,
D.C., to discuss their work
in the symposium “Thinking
about Art and Digital
Culture.” This anthology
continues those conversations
with writing by Kari Altmann,
Kenneth Goldsmith, Jon
Rafman and Ben Vickers,
among others.
Eindhoven, The Netherlands,
Onomatopee, 2015; 416 pages, $35
paperback.DAVID HORVITZ
Mood Disorder
To explore the meandering
circulation of images online,
artist David Horvitz staged a
self-portrait in front of a
crashing sea, his head in his
hands, and uploaded the
image to various Wikipe-
dia pages related to mood
disorders. This “stock photo”
quickly spread, illustrat-
ing over 100 online articles
related to mental health
issues. The po-faced digital
undertaking, now collected
in print with a text by poet
Ed Steck, is buoyed by the
humorous obliviousness of
Internet users, us included.
Los Angeles, New Documents, 2015;
72 pages, $18 staple bound.OMAR KHOLEIF, ed.
You Are Here: Art
After the Internet
Net-savvy contributors,
including volume editor
Omar Kholeif, senior curator
at the Museum of Contem-
porary Art Chicago, critic
Ed Halter andA.i.A.associ-
ate editor Brian Droitcour,
evaluate the current state of
cultural production in the
still-developing “Post-Inter-
net” age. The critical essays
here chronicle the effects of
the Internet on contempo-
rary artistic practices, from
the start of the millennium
to the present.
Manchester, Cornerhouse Publica-
tions, 2014; 272 pages, $23.55
paperback.