The Politics of Medium Specificity

Abstract

Ryan will share some ideas that stemmed from his PhD research, focussing in particular on the (often reviled) notion of “medium specificity”. In the history of art criticism, medium specificity came to symbolise the hard edge of modernist formalism and gave rise to reactionary projects such as contemporary art’s “postmedium condition”. Ryan is interested in reconceiving the notion of medium specificity through its radical expansion, steering it away from its formalist origins to understand artistic and cultural forms as mediums of production in the context of a global capitalist present. He invites you all to read and respond to a rough draft of a paper-in-progress, in which he attempts to outline a “politics of medium specificity”