Displacements

This book is about the aesthetics and politics of contemporary artists’ moving image installations, and the ways that they use temporal and spatial relationships in the gallery to connect with geopolitical issues. Displaced from the cinema, moving images increasingly address themes of movement and change in the world today. Digital technology has facilitated an explosion of work of this kind, and the expansion of contemporary art museums, biennales and large-scale exhibitions all over the world has created venues and audiences for it. Despite its 20th century precursors, this is a new and distinct artistic form, with an emerging body of thematic concerns and aesthetics strategies. Through detailed analysis of a range of important 21st century works, the book explores how this spatio-temporal form has been used to address major issues of our time, including post-colonialism, migration and conflict. Paying close attention to the ways in which moving images interact with the specific spaces and sites of exhibition, the book explores the mobile viewer’s experiences in these immersive and transitory works.