Forms of Abstraction engages with abstraction not as a formal option in art, or as an airy theoretical speculation, but as an operational force that has redesigned our world, and continues to do so.

Beyond the lunatic fringe views regarding the end of the world, a more constructive reading of the phenomenon is found in new age circles claiming that 2012 might be the beginning of a higher consciousness in humanity, coming to the realization that, in fact, Western systems have not brought prosperity and fulfillment to everybody as once imagined.

Today we live in a world that can be described as an “internet of things,” one that embraces digital technologies, and fulfills the dream worlds envisioned by twentieth-century writers, architects, and artists. The internet is an ever-growing storage space of information that we have come to rely on—but what does this thing called the internet really mean? And does it still exist?

In Hito Steyerl’s writing we begin to see how, even if the hopes and desires for coherent collective political projects have been displaced onto images and screens, it is precisely here that we must look frankly at the technology that seals them in.

The moving image has irrevocably redefined our experience and construction of history. In the contemporary economy of time, history has become an image in motion, a series of events animated and performed through various media. Analyzing a variety of films, video pieces, and performances, Sven Lütticken evaluates the impact that our changing experience of time has had on the actualization of history in the present.