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INDEXING IMAGINARIES

Edited by Laura Serejo Genes, Nolan Oswald Dennis and Pedro Zylbersztajn
Upcoming volume in the series, to be published in 2024 by Open Humanities Press

Outline:

An indexical attitude – a conceptual posture that suggests an object may point to another in such a way that it provides access to the latter as information – has structured globalized culture and politics from colonialism to AI. This volume investigates the index as an object, a process and a practice which is always present but seldom observed in relative isolation. The book engages indexicality through critical considerations of the pragmatic applications of the index, the aesthetic possibilities of indexing and its effect on the politics of everyday life. Indexing is the function through which relations are produced, registered and categorised. While the index is often characterised as a technical instrument, impartial to its implementation and removed from the human (and non-human) politics of its use, in actuality the index is an essential social technology. By probing the index as an apparatus, we begin to question its abilities and limitations as a primary bridge between forms of knowledge, knowing and knowledge production.

Contributors include: Alice Noujaim, Francisco Brito Cruz, Renato Maretti & Romeu Loreto, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Index Literacy Program, Javier Anguera/ccindex, Josephine Livingstone, Kwasu Tembo, Luiza Crosman, manuel arturo abreu, Mindy Seu & Amelia Bearskin-Winger, Renée Green, Rodrigo Ochigame, Ryan Kuo, Tobi Maier, Xavi Nueno, a.o.