ÆFfect - by Stephen Duncombe

About the Book

"The past decade has seen an explosion in the hybrid practice of 'artistic activism,' as artists have turned toward activism to make their work more socially impactful and activists have adopted techniques and perspectives from the arts to make their interventions more creative. Yet questions haunt the practice: Does artistic activism work aesthetically? Does it work politically? And what does 'working' even mean when one combines art and activism? In ¥ffect, author Stephen Duncombe sets out to address these questions at the heart of the field of artistic activism"

Book Synopsis

The first book to seriously identify how artistic activism works and how to make it work better

The past decade has seen an explosion in the hybrid practice of "artistic activism," as artists have turned toward activism to make their work more socially impactful and activists have adopted techniques and perspectives from the arts to make their interventions more creative. Yet questions haunt the practice: Does artistic activism work aesthetically? Does it work politically? And what does "working" even mean when one combines art and activism? In Æffect, author Stephen Duncombe sets out to address these questions at the heart of the field of artistic activism.

Written by the co-founder and current Research Director of the internationally recognized Center for Artistic Activism, Æffect draws on Duncombe's more than twenty-five years of experi-ence in the field and one hundred in-depth interviews with artistic activists worldwide. More than a mere academic exercise, the theory, research, and tools in this book lay the groundwork for artistic activists to evaluate and strengthen their practice and to create better projects. The exploration of good artistic activism is grounded in three sets of concerns. 1) Change: Upon what theories of change is artistic activism based? 2) Intention: What do we hope and expect artistic activism to do, and how does it do this? 3) Evaluation: What actually happens as the result of an artistic activist intervention? Can it be measured?

Æffect is rich with examples that demonstrate successful artistic activism, including Undo-cubus, an old bus painted "No Fear" across its side that was driven cross-country by a group of undocumented immigrant activists; Journal Rappé, a video show created by Senegalese rappers who created long-form investigative reports by rapping the current news in French and Wolof; and War on Smog, a staged a public performance piece by artistic activists in the city of Chongqing in Southwest China. Scannable QR codes are included to provide tools that help readers assess the æffect of their artistic activism.

Review Quotes

Examines what the trend of combining art and activism means for the future of socially impactful yet creative expression.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Grounded in artist-activists' own intentions and observations, Duncombe leads an open-spirited and engaging inquiry into the relationship between affect and effect in looking at the hybrid practice of artistic activism. Practitioners will find it especially compelling in its wide range of practitioner voices and projects as they reflect upon the aeffect of their intertwined aesthetic choices and social intents.---Pam Korza, Former co-director, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts

The word 'assessment' makes my skin crawl, but we need to know if what we are doing works and there's no one I trust more to help us figure this out than Stephen Duncombe.---Andy Bichlbaum, The Yes Men

I've lost count of the number of times people working in foundations and nonprofits have asked me and other champions of artistic activism and culture change work, 'but how can we know if it's working? As Stephen Duncombe shows, the answer to this question is by no means a mystery, but it does require a willingness to answer it. The beauty of Duncombe's approach is that it can be tailored to fit the needs and resources of even the most time- and cash-strapped organizations and activists. Æffect: The Affect and Effect of Artistic Activism is one of the most useful attempts to answer the question of impact that I have yet come across, and the next time someone asks about how to measure progress in creative activism, I plan to just hand them a copy of this book.---Brett Davidson, Founder and Principal, Wingseed, and former Director of Media and Narratives at the Open Society Public Health Program

In a historical moment plagued by political, economic, and social polarization, Stephen Duncombe provides a useful and engaging manual for understanding and enacting the power of culture to make change. From an analysis of theories of change and their histories, to highly practical questions, examples, and worksheets, Æffect delivers a set of important guidelines to consider the impact of artistic activism. Duncombe argues for the need to reach beyond the world of symbols into that of action, while utilizing the pull of emotion to motivate change, detailing an activism that shifts the ways we imagine the world by melding the mystery of art with the clarity of impact, all in an accessible book for anyone seeking social transformation.---Laura Raicovich, author of Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest

Artists invested in social change often shirk or retreat from the notion of evaluation. Assessment feels daunting, if not entirely out of our skill set. But what happens when we more carefully look at artistic affect when it contributes to a tangible shift and transformation of power in whatever form, duration, or container? Stephen Duncombe's groundbreaking catalog and study offers us not only critical examples of practices in the realm of artistic activism but also illuminate how, when recalibrated toward metrics of social aesthetics, we may better ascertain what is, was, or might be gained in our intentions.Shaun Leonardo, artist---Shaun Leonardo, artist

The question of what kinds of activism actually work has never been more urgent. This book delves elegantly and brilliantly into a rich set of issues surrounding how art and activism impact social change. While many have speculated and made assumptions about this topic, this is the first in-depth study to systematically examine all the factors that go into understanding how activist art affects people and effects the political arena. Drawing upon over 100 interviews with actual practitioners of the arts of protest, the book offers a range of perspectives that will prove useful to many different kinds of readers, from social movement scholars to art historians to activist artists to all concerned citizens. Everyone interested in furthering social change, and everyone interested in the role of the arts in social life should read this important book.---T.V. Reed, author of The Art of Protest and curator of culturalpolitics.net

About the Author

Stephen Duncombe is Professor of Media and Culture at New York University and author and editor of nine books and numerous articles on the intersection of culture and politics. These include Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (New Press, 2007; O/R Books, 2019), the Cultural Resistance Reader (Verso, 2002), and, with Steve Lambert, The Art of Activism (O/R Books, 2021). He is the creator of the Open Utopia, an open-access, open-source, web-based edition of Thomas More's Utopia, and co-creator of Actipedia.org, a user-generated digital database of artistic activism case studies. A life-long activist, Duncombe is the co-founder and Research Director of the Center for Artistic Activism, a research and training organization that helps activists create more like artists and artists strategize more like activists.