Is capital visible?

In his essay “Cognitive Mapping” from 1988 Fredric Jameson declares it as the central task of aesthetic production to render visible the structures of the capitalist system. Today, the networks of financial capital mark a crucial dimension of the global condition. This master thesis takes Jameson as a starting point for developing constructive cartographic forms of the contemporary social reality which can serve as a model of orientation for the individual. It focuses on artistic representations of the 2008 financial crisis, which is perceptible as an economic crisis in several countries to this day. While this financial crisis still remains a widely opaque phenomenon, its inherent moment of non-functioning reveals the otherwise invisible mode of functioning of the capitalist system. Since abstraction as a form of organization marks a fundamental obstacle for political resistance, the various artistic and art theoretical attempts at visualizing are connected to the search for political forms of organization and communication.

Supervised by: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich and Prof. Dr. Johan F. Hartle

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