SHIFTER 8
Rules & Representations


Mauro Altamura
Igor Baskin
Chris Bors
Cammi Climaco
Ben Colebrook
Sunoj D
Michael Eddy
Seth Ellis
Curtis Evans
Swetha Gowri
Benjamin Grasso
Alina Viola Grumiller
Vandana Jain
Sonia Jose
Misako Kitaoka
Miranda Maher
Alisdair McRae
Anne M. Platoff
Ana Prvacki
Kamya Ramachandran
Dan Levenson
Nora Schultz
Ruben Verdu
Anna Vitale
Bethany Wright
Joe Zane

Editor: Sreshta Rit Premnath
Associate Editor: Gonner Heiliger Von Lugen
Critical Advisor: Pieter DeHeijde
Design + Copy: IF

www.shifter-magazine.com



When the Committee on Symbolic Articles Related to the First Lunar Landing (Apollo 11) convened, they discussed the technical difficulties of planting the American flag in the absence of an atmosphere. They devised a horizontal beam to hold up the still flag, and prevent it from hanging limp. The flag as a signifier depends on certain contextual (environmental) properties in order to function - in fact its performative meaning is completely dependent on its ability to wave and hence a prevalent wind.

The emptiness of a displaced signifier is a preoccupation in this issue.

Possibilities:

4) Can rules that have been formulated for a specific purpose be appropriated, salvaged and put to unforeseen uses? What happens to this appropriated structure/ language? What is its relationship to the source structure/ language?

1) (How) Does the represented Subject use the rules of their given symbolic space to find and articulate their subjectivity within the rules of that space. Raising the question of where within the homogenized spheres of production and consumption in this globalizing society, are there spaces for subjective articulation? In the performance of everyday life? In revolt?

2) If the Subject is (I)tself constituted as a representation of these rules, are its articulations also a representation of the same rules? If so, must we remove the term 'Subject