The Aesthetics of Erasure NMC/Media-N – SRING 2015: V.11 N.01

Pat Badani
Editor-in-Chief
Media-N, Journal of the New Media Caucus

Media-N, Journal of the New Media Caucus is pleased to announce the launch of our spring 2015 online and print edition.

Online & print edition 
http://median.newmediacaucus.org/the_aesthetics_of_erasure/

The Aesthetics of Erasure

Against the backdrop of a longstanding practice of ‘erasure’ both in artistic and critical work, co-guest editors Paul Benzon and Sarah Sweeney take up challenging questions related to the aesthetics of erasure today in the digital era. They investigate new meanings and the relevance of said practice within twenty-first century contemporary contexts typically defined by digital knowledge production, preservation, and sharing.

With a number of tantalizing questions in mind, the guest editors have assembled texts and visual essays by fourteen authors: Joshua Craze; Seth Ellis; Kaja Marczewska; Justin Berry; David Gyscek; Derek Beaulieu; Amaranth Borsuk, Jesper Juul, and Nick Montfort; Torsa Ghosal; William Basinski; Ella Klik and Diana Kamin; and Matthew Schilleman. Their contributions give expression to five sites of inquiry mapped by the editors within the expansive practice of erasure – Power, Capital, Signal and Noise, Technology and Archive – a topography in which issues of technology and materiality are explored.

The Reviews and Reports subsection of Media-N is devoted to the publication of high-quality reviews and reports that provide readers with an up-to-date picture of global trends in new media art. Reviews and Reports Editor Grant Taylor asserts that newly published books, new media conferences and symposia, and current art exhibitions are important sites in which cutting-edge scholarship and emergent practices are first revealed. With the intention of bringing the interpretive tools of art criticism to bear on these new media manifestations, the editor has assembled two book reviews; one by Orit Halpern on Chris Salter’s recently published book Alien Agency (MIT Press, 2015), and a second one by Marie Leduc titled The Hypertext of HerMe(s) on Judy Freya Sibayan’s ebook (KT Press, 2014). Two exhibition reviews written by Ahyoung Yoo and Paul Thomas Rubery offer readers a critical overview the 2014 Gwangju Biennale: Burning Down the House in South Korea and the 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience at the New Museum in New York City. Gail Kenning, a Sydney-based artist, researcher, educator, and writer, proposes unique musings and reflections on the positive impact of residencies on creative practice and scholarship in her piece Fellowships, Residencies, and Resonances: A Self-Interview.

Pat Badani
Editor-in-Chief

V.11 N.01 publication acknowledgements:
Web and print publication manager and Editor-in-Chief: Pat Badani.
Print publication director, design and layout: Brooke N. Scherer
Web publication design, layout and proofreading. Stacey Stormes.
Media-N’s supporting Associate Editor for the current edition: Stephanie Tripp, PhD
Editor of the Reviews and Reports journal section: Grant Taylor, PhD
Copy editors for the current edition: Stephanie Tripp, PhD and Grant Taylor, PhD
Cover image: He Did Not See Any Americans blue, 2006, oil on linen, 4 elements. 33 x 102 in. / 83.8 x 259.1 cm. Text: U.S. government document. © 2015 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.