Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century

(Paperback)

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A fog of information and images has flooded the world: from advertising, television, radio and film to the information glut produced by the new economy. With the rise of social networking, contemporaries, peers and friends are all suddenly selling us the ultimate product: themselves. Curator and critic Nato Thompson interrogates the implications of these developments for those dedicated to socially engaged art and activism. How can anyone find a voice and make change when the world is flooded with images and information

Reviews

Praise for Seeing Power

Like an updated version of John Bergers groundbreaking Ways of Seeing, Nato Thompsons Seeing Power delivers a smart, accessible introduction to the prevailing artistic predicaments of our time. Written by one of our leading public intellectuals, it covers a wide range of key issues from the cultural politics of Occupy Wall Street; to the use and abuse of accumulated social capital; to the perennial antagonism between sophisticated cultural ambiguity and didactic, artistic impact. Seeing Power is a twenty-first-century users manual for the social responsible artist, critic, and curator.
Gregory Sholette, author of Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture

"Athought- provoking manifesto on the artists position within a system where making money is inextricably linked to producing culture...Seeing Powerisnt only for artists and activists. It is for anyone willing to re-think their consumer habits and ready to identify the power structures that heavily influence our day-to-day behaviours."
Peace News

Praise for Experimental Geography

Living in cities, we need a new way to think about how we move and what we notice . . . This strange, exciting book offers just thata new way to notice public space. It is the brainchild of Nato Thompson: the results of his fascinations with urban planning post-Katrina, abandoned or unnoticed urban landscapes and public art.
Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

What could be more delightfuland unsettlingthan turning loose a group of contemporary surrealists, disguised as vagabonds and artists, in the ripe fields of the hyperreal Experimental Geography isnt about space; it is about terminal strangeness.
Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear and City of Quartz

Another step in the ongoing quest for social energies not yet recognized as art . . . exploring the politics and infrastructures that can either change or stall the world.
Lucy Lippard, author of The Lure of the Local

Author Bio

NATO THOMPSON is a writer and curator whose work primarily focuses on the intersection of art, politics, and the city. He has curated numerous large-scale exhibitions and projects both at the public arts institution Creative Time, where he is chief curator, and as a Curator at MASS MoCA. He is the editor of The Interventionists- A Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, and author of Experimental Geography- Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism (Melville House), and Ahistoric Occasion- Artists Making History. He lives in Philadelphia.