WITHOUT FEELINGS – Reflections on an exhibition by Mariam Giunashvili

Mariam Giunashvili (მზესუ)

This evening (March 17), I went to Halfsister, a gallery space in Berlin run by two Georgian sisters, for an exhibition by Mariam Giunashvili (მზესუ), a Georgian photographer, titled Disposable Highs. The mostly black-and-white photographs move between intimacy and rupture. Many were taken in Tbilisi’s (now closed) alternative bars, where the artist worked—sometimes at five bars at once—ending nights, or rather mornings, in nightclubs before returning to work again. These images capture closeness, elation, and a kind of familiarity that feels almost tactile. They are set against a different visual register, one that feels cold, displaying brutal encounters from demonstrations on Rustaveli Avenue over the past decade.

Algorithmic media and the becoming ir/rational of affect. A book review.

Affective Transformations. Politics – Algorithms – Media contributes to the growing academic literature on the relations between affect and algorithmic media. The anthology emerged from a conference organized by the Affective Media Studies research group at the University of Potsdam and includes critical and interdisciplinary, albeit predominantly philosophical engagements with the increasing automation and regulation … weiterlesen

The affective economy of anxiety or how the German far right capitalizes on Covid-19

In Germany and elsewhere, far-right movements are making use of the ongoing pandemic in various ways and mobilizing supporters online and offline. Just last weekend, around 40,000 people gathered in Berlin reportedly to protest the German government’s measures to redeem the crisis. Reportedly, because the messages and paroles uttered at these so-called Hygiene-Demos – or … weiterlesen