Edited by
Fabienne Liptay
in conjunction with Carla Gabrí and Laura Walde
Managing Editor
Michael Birchall
Published by
Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst,
University of Zurich,
and Scheidegger & Spiess
1st edition, 2023
Text in English
Hardback
320 pages, 144 color and 31 b/w illustrations
17 x 23 cm
ISBN 978-3-85881-888-1
Open Access on the publisher's website
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53788/TAME0001
The book’s title—Taking Measures—has a double meaning: as a reference to the practices of measurement and to the political potential of power and resistance. Throughout their history to today, film and video have served as measuring devices for scientific, economic, political and other purposes and have been employed in a variety of fields beyond art. However, in acknowledging these uses also lies the opportunity for art to test its own effectiveness in public space and to uncover potential for resistance in artistic action. In which practices of measurement, of the production of knowledge and evidence in the interest of useful research, are film and video involved? In what way can artistic practice not only make these involvements visible but challenge and test them? How can technologies of measurement in art be used politically and made operative for the public sector? How can formats themselves, as the measures of art, be exhibited? How can they be put in relation to exhibition spaces and their economies of valorization, and how can this relationship be assessed?
With essays by Erika Balsom, Burcu Dogramaci, Philipp Fleischmann, Ursula Frohne, Ute Holl, Thomas Julier, Fabienne Liptay, Jacqueline Maurer, Alexandra Navratil, Warren Neidich, Volker Pantenburg, Hannes Rickli, Dorota Sajewska, Benoît Turquety, Marijke van Warmerdam, Laura Walde, and Eyal Weizman.