Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle

Michael Baers

John Miller

Although the American extremist right is small in numbers, it exerts a disproportionate ideological influence both domestically and internationally. Although built on outlandish claims, the rhetoric of the militant right quickly becomes repetitive and stultifying, and people should not underestimate the danger it poses. Its ridiculousness conceals a violence and divisiveness which are clearly aimed at mainstream and progressive, liberal-democratic values in the United States.

Alenka Zupančič

The following is a very important question (and answer) asked by psychoanalysis and brought to the attention of both philosophy and logics: If we admit the non-functioning of the principle of the excluded third, what then is the status of the third that we allow for in this way? Is it something in between, a combination of two, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, a nuance with a certain degree of intensity? Or is it effectively something else (that is, precisely something “third”), with its own ontological status, even if the latter turns out to be very paradoxical?

Mladen Dolar

The following is a very important question (and answer) asked by psychoanalysis and brought to the attention of both philosophy and logics: If we admit the non-functioning of the principle of the excluded third, what then is the status of the third that we allow for in this way? Is it something in between, a combination of two, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, a nuance with a certain degree of intensity? Or is it effectively something else (that is, precisely something “third”), with its own ontological status, even if the latter turns out to be very paradoxical?

Hans Ulrich Obrist

McNamara’s generation really believed that they could sanctify everything, technologize and rationalize everything. And that didn’t work. But it doesn’t mean that building great buildings is wrong. And it doesn’t mean that scientific rationality is wrong. That’s the important thing to realize. You see, what then happens is that the conservatives and the hippies both react to this failure and say, well, this means that you can’t plan anything—science is wrong and rationality is wrong, and all you can really do is allow the free market to flourish and order will come out of that. It’s essentially irrational. In the end, I think rationality’s all you’ve got to work with.

Martha Rosler

A discussion of the struggles, exoduses, and reappropriations of cognitive labor, especially in the field of visual art, and especially when taken as the leading edge of the “creative class,” while critically important, is trumped by the widespread, even worldwide, public demonstrations and occupations of the past year, this year, and maybe the next. I would like to revisit the creative-class thesis I have explored here in a recent series of essays in order to frame my remarks in light of these occupations, and to make a few observations about the relationship between artists, the positioning of the creative class, and the Occupy movement.