When Site Lost the Plot

by Robin Mackay (Editor)

The critical concept of site-specificity once seemed to harbour the potential for disruption. But site-specific work has become increasingly assimilated into the capitalist logic of regeneration and value creation. The materialist critique of the art object has been shortcircuited by the franchised idiosyncrasies of international nomad flaneurs. Meanwhile, on a planet whose entire surface is mapped and apped, the concept of "site" itself becomes ever more problematic.

How can we do justice to the particularity of local sites while unearthing their material conditions? What do a contemporary "geo-philosophy" and the historical legacy of site-specific art have to offer each other? Can we develop methods for the controlled unpacking of the local into the global, avoiding trivial reconciliations between local sites and their global conditions? When Site Lost the Plot charts some of the ways in which site continues to be a concern for contemporary practice; and introduces the concept of "plot" as an alternative, richer way in which to approach these questions.

Alongside artists discussing their practice and their approach to site and plot, contributors from various disciplines introduce concepts from cartography, mathematics, film, fiction, design, and philosophy that may help us to think otherwise the relation between local and global, between specific sites and their material conditions.

331 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2015