While the nation-state gave rise to the advent of museums, its influence in times of transculturality and post-/decolonial studies appears to have vanished. But is this really the case? With case studies from various geo- and sociopolitical contexts from around the globe, the contributors investigate which roles the nation-state continues to play in museums, collections, and heritage. They answer the question to which degree the nation-state still determines practices of collection and circulation and its amount of power to shape contemporary narratives. The volume thus examines the contradictions at play when the necessary claim for transculturality meets the institutions of the nation-state. With contributions by Stanislas Spero Adotevi, Sebastian Eduardo Davila, Natasha Ginwala, Monica Hanna, Rajkamal Kahlon, Suzana Milevska, Mirjam Shatanawi, Kavita Singh, Ruth Stamm, Andrea Witcomb.

Reste fordern die Institution des Museums heraus. Es sind Kippfiguren, die Zuschreibungen oeffnen und damit an UEberschreitungen der taxonomischen, disziplinaren, architektonischen und institutionellen Grenzen des Museums mitarbeiten. Sie sind uberall anzutreffen - im Ausstellungsraum genauso wie im Depot, im Labor genauso wie in der Verwaltung. In jedem dieser Kontexte stehen jeweils andere Formen des professionellen Selbstverstandnisses, des Wissens und des praktischen Umgangs zur Verfugung, die den Status von Resten determinieren. Der Band tragt dazu bei, Begriffe wie Rest, Abfall, Spuren, Rander im Kontext des Museums zu prazisieren und fur Debatten in Konservierung, Kuration, Kunstgeschichte und Museumsanthropologie neu zu bewerten.

Over the past few decades, the "pictorial turn" in the natural sciences, prompted by the computer's capacity to produce visual representations, has generated considerable theoretical interest. Poised between their materiality and the abstract level they are meant to convey, scientific images are always intersections of form and meaning. Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010), one of the best-known producers of digital images in scientific and industrial research, was particularly curious about the ways in which the materiality of scientific representation was able to influence the development of the ideas and abstractions the images embodied. Using images and objects found in Mandelbrot's office, this book questions the relationship between the visual and scientific reasoning in fractal geometry and chaos theory, among the most popular fields to use digital scientific imagery in the past century. These unpublished materials offer new connections between the material world and that of mathematical ideas. Work by Adrien Douady and Otto Roessler provides historical depth to the analysis. Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center, NY Exhibition Schedule: Bard Graduate Center(09/20/12-01/27/13)