Ideas and themes central to both cybernetics and existentialist philosophy converge in the work of some of the world's most celebrated contemporary artists. Utilizing little or no technology, these artists nonetheless employ "systems" approaches and proto-cybernetic models, while simultaneously exploring themes directly related to existentialism.

Ideas and themes central to both cybernetics and existentialist philosophy converge in the work of some of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Utilizing little or no technology, these artists nonetheless employ “systems” approaches and protocybernetic models, while simultaneously exploring themes directly related to existentialism.

Citation:
Dixon, Steve. "Cybernetic-Existentialism and Being-Towards-Death in Contemporary Art and Performance." TDR: The Drama Review, vol. 61, no. 3, 2017, pp. 36-55, doi:10.1162/DRAM_a_00672.

This paper discusses the value of design rights using the example of UK's most high-profile case of design right litigation: Trunki, a ride-on travel case for children. Rob Law MBE invented Trunki in 1996. He registered it as a design in 2002 in the UK, and in 2003 with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), now EUIPO. The design has since been emulated by competitors in countries across the globe.

This paper constitutes a critical and detailed review of an investigation into design right infringement in the UK. The original mixed-method study was commissioned by the UK IPO in 2015/2016 and led by the author throughout the first three of four project stages. This paper focuses specifically on the results obtained in relation to registered design right infringement.

One of the first principles of capitalism is, undeniably, instrumentalisation; the subjection of one thing to another with the speculative aim of producing some future ‘value’, regardless of how dubious – or even noxious this ‘value’ may be. In the knowledge economy, which produces value from accelerated innovation (also interpretable as the overproduction of the minimally different) value is extracted in two chief ways: via the misplaced rhetoric of excellence, and via netocratic quantification.

The being of human beings and, in particular, their wellbeing is profoundly spatial and temporal. We feel well in dramaturgically stimulating, sheltered, yet expansive spaces that lend themselves to daydreaming, much like we feel well in “thick” time that, like a complex melody, textures our existence aurally, kinesthetically, and propriocentrically (influencing our body’s sense of balance).

For Foucault, discipline was a subtle form of power that coerced the body in order to control its movements, attitudes, and moods. For McKenzie, it is oppressive-excessive performance that takes the place of overt disciplinarity in the twenty-first century.

Yvonne Spielmann diskutiert in ihrer Studie den Stellenwert indonesischer Kunst der Gegenwart, die seit den 1990er Jahren zunehmend an Kunstereignissen im asiatisch-pazifischen Raum und weltweit an Biennalen, Auktionen, Messen und internationalen Ausstellungen mit wachsendem Erfolg beteiligt ist. Diese Initiativen von Kuratoren, Galerien, alternativen Kunstprojekten und Sammlern verändern die weltweite Perspektive hin zu einem asiatisch konnotierten Umfeld und steigern den Marktwert.

During a time when the idea of Europe, and the EU in particular, is tainted with economic crisis and democratic decline, Aleksandar Brkić's analysis of the role of cultural networks in helping Europe serve people is both a wake-up call for European authorities which support cultural networks and a tool for cultural networks themselves to check that they are fulfilling their European and intercultural remit as well as they should.
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The Art of Sukumar Bose (1912-1986) undertakes an incisive look at the artist, his works and context of his art production in South and Southeast Asia. The first of its kind to document and give a critical overview of Bose who was curator of paintings at Rhastrapati Bhavan (President's Home) in India through British Raj to post-independent India, the book engages through essays by various eminent scholars to place his work within art history.