How to navigate the rapidly changing digital geopolitics of the world today? How do we make sense of digital transformation and its many social, political, cultural, and environmental implications at different locations around the world? Vertical Atlas brings together the insights of a diverse group of internationally renowned artists, scientists and technologists from different backgrounds and places. This book is a tool that enables comparisons, connections and contradictions between differ...

'Ema (Nude on a staircase)' pulls the reader into the mind of Ema, the young woman descending the staircase in Gerhard Richter's 1966 painting, 'Ema'. Ema is a young artist who wants to discover what her greatest form of creativity is. She embarks on a journey of awakening, a quest for mastery that brings her into dialogue with her teachers and with her great mentors, the artists Gerhard Richter, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. Ema explores her field, finds her own voice, considers the world an...

Most of Marc Boumeester's thinking falls under affect theory, a philosophy of a new generation, which in its turn is fueled by Deleuzian scholarship. Boumeester formulates new and contemporary concepts that can be put into action in art and design education through an operational style called "intensive thinking". In the book, many interesting examples of educational programmes and works of art are accompanied by images relating to how this theoretical approach can be applied in art and desig...

There’s no escaping fashion. Everyone wears clothes, and that means making choices, always raising the same practical, strategic, political, or entirely irrational question: What should I put on? In this guide, Karin Schacknat has found a new, comprehensive way to illustrate the developments in European clothing and apparel-related behaviour from antiquity to the beginning of the 21st century. From the toga to Dolce & Gabbana, from the 17th century lace collar to Iris van Herpen. So much of...

The prevailing understanding of technology tends to focus either on its functional or instrumental value or on its expressive qualities as a matter of representation. Pauline van Dongen argues for the need to reframe the role of technology in fashion, examining how wearables – garments that combine electronics and digital materials with textiles – can become integral to fashion’s everyday reality. Her own practice as a fashion designer is informed by the concept of material aesthetics. ...

Theoretical concepts are important in contemporary art practice. The ongoing and fascinating discussion of exactly what role theory should play, and the influence of theory on art practice, are at the heart of this collection. By presenting the seemingly simple question 'Why, what and how theory?' to a range of people who are involved in international art education in the realm of fine art and performing art, this book provides an inventory of current opinions in this area.

What do we mean by theory in the arts, and what role does it play in that sense? Theory appears as an active, transformative, fluid, and communicative element of art practices, and research in the arts in particular. Theory is the fluid that perfuses and connects the territory of fine art and design, as well as other art forms such as music, architecture, writing, moving images, dance, and theatre. At the heart of this publication is the new field of research in theory and the way the ArtEZ T...