DIY Utopia

Cultural Imagination and the Remaking of the Possible

Amber Day (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

290 Seiten

2016
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-2388-2 (ISBN)

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This collection examines contemporary artist and activist-inspired utopian projects and DIY communities of interest. Throwing into relief the immense difficulty of thinking beyond the current system of consumer capitalism, coupled with the powerful desire to do just that, this anthology explores what our ideals and desires tell us about ourselves.

At first glance, contemporary popular culture, filled with bleak images of the future, seems to have given up on the possibility of positive collective change. Below the surface, however, alternative culture is rife with artist-led projects, activist movements, and subcultural communities of interest that seek to spark the collective imagination and to encourage hunger for alternatives. More playfully self-conscious than past utopian movements, today’s are often whimsical or ironic, but are still entirely earnest. Artists invite us to re-author city maps, or archive individual ideas for the future, while maker collectives urge us to rethink our relationship to consumer goods. All seem to have grown out of a similar do-it-yourself ethos and alternative culture. One of the central conflicts informing these case studies is that while it remains immensely difficult to envision anything outside of the current system of consumer capitalism, there is nevertheless a powerful desire to take it apart in piecemeal ways. We see the longing for new social and political narratives, new forms of communion and sociability, and new imaginings of the possible, longings that are currently unmet by mainstream culture, but that are taking expression in myriad ways at the local level. Taken as a whole, this collection examines what our grand ideals and playful daydreams tell us about ourselves.

Amber Day is associate professor in the English and Cultural Studies Department at Bryant University

Introduction
Introduction: Creative Play and Collective Imagination
Amber Day
Imagination and Play: Asking “What If?”
Opening up UtopiaStephen Duncombe
Civic Imagination and A Useless MapCatherine D’Ignazio
Implausible Futures for Unpopular PlacesRob Walker
DIY Subcultures
Repair Events and the Fixer Movements: Fixing the World One Repair at a TimeLorenzo Giannini
Our Knowledge is our Market: Consuming the DIY World Jeremy Hunsinger
DIY Radio Utopia: What is So Funny About the Tragedy of the CommonsLinda Doyle and Jessica Foley
Protests and Peripheries
Remaking Street Corners as “Bureaux”: DIY Youth Spaces and Shifting Urban Ontologies in GuineaClovis Bergère
Whose City? Art and Public Space in ProvidenceMartha Kuhlman
Livestream Production and Livestream Community in the Black Lives Matter MovementChenjerai Kumanyika
Popular Culture and Utopia
Making Do and Mending - Domestic Television in The Age of Austerity: Kirstie Allsopp’s Kirstie’sHomemade HomeDeborah Philips
Everyday Utopias, Technological Dystopias, and the Failed Occupation of the Global Modern: Dwell Magazine Meets Unhappy HipstersJoan Faber McAlister and Giorgia Aiello
“Change Your Underwear, Change the World:” Entrepreneurial Activism and the Fate of Utopias in an Era of Ethical CapitalLisa Daily

Erscheinungsdatum	11.01.2017
Co-Autor	Giorgia Aiello, Clovis Bergère, Lisa Daily, Linda Doyle
Zusatzinfo	20 b/w photos; 1 table
Sprache	englisch
Maße	159 x 237 mm
Gewicht	644 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Heimwerken / Do it yourself
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Malen / Zeichnen
	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-4985-2388-9 / 1498523889
ISBN-13	978-1-4985-2388-2 / 9781498523882
Zustand	Neuware