Liquidity, Flows, Circulation

It has become a truism that capital circulates, that data, populations and materials flow, that money offers liquidity. Placed at the intersection of art, media and cultural studies as well as economic theory, the volume investigates the Cultural Logic of Environmentalization. As flows, circulations and liquidity resurface in all aspects of recent culture and contemporary art, this volume investigates the hypothesis of a genuine cultural logic of environmentalization through these three concepts. It thus brings together two areas of research which have been largely separate. On the one hand, the volume takes up discussions about ecologies with and without nature and environmentalization as a contemporary form of power and capital. On the other hand, the volume takes its cue from Fredric Jameson’s notion that each stage of capitalism is accompanied by a genuine cultural logic. The volume introduces this current of materialist thinking into the ongoing discussions of ecologies and environmentalization. By analyzing contemporary art, architecture, theater, films, and literature, the 15 contributions by scholars and artists explore different fields where liquid forms, semantics of flow, or processes of circulation emerge as a contemporary cultural logic.