Coloniality of Infrastructure, E-Flux Architecture Series

Infrastructure is inherited from the past—not only through material artifacts and physical configurations but also through spatial imaginaries, affective relations, and shared memories. Such inheritances may be immaterial, as in the way a colonial railway conveys romantic memories of travel for some or resilience against the traumas of subjugation for others. They may be projective, fueling individual aspirations of prosperity, mobility, or belonging. Or they may signify “roads not taken,” propelling dreams of another, radically different future. Inheritance can also be forged from material artifacts. As new, monumental infrastructures of postcolonial nation-building have risen, colonial-era infrastructures have crumbled.

e-flux was started by artists in 1999. Online, e-flux.com spans numerous strains of critical discourse in art, architecture, film, and theory, and connects many of the most significant art institutions with audiences around the world.

e-flux’s announcements deliver the latest press releases of key art exhibitions relevant to an international public. Its online archive reaches back two decades, forming a unique art historical resource on global contemporary art exhibitions, curatorial concepts, and artistic ideas.

e-flux produces and presents original art projects, symposia, and exhibitions that have appeared at Documenta, the Venice Biennale, and art institutions around the world, as well as at its own space in New York, which hosts frequent public lectures and a regular podcastseries.

e-flux journal, launched in 2008, commissions and publishes some of the most influential writings on art, film, history, technology, and politics in its monthly online publication and series of books, published together with Sternberg Press and the University of Minnesota Press. Many essays first published in e-flux journal have become canonical readings in the art theory of our time. In 2016, e-flux launched a new publication on architecture, and in 2019, e-flux Video & Film began streaming artist films online.

Bar Laika, located in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, serves excellent drinks and presents performances of experimental music. Soon, e-flux Cinematheque will open its doors nearby at 172 Classon Avenue.

Editorial

Kenny Cupers

Zandi Sherma

Infrastructures and the Ontological Question of Race

Sophie Toupin

From Dream to Reality: The African National Congress Internet

Emilio Distretti

Reparations, beyond infrastructure

Sarah Nuttall

Infrastructure’s Drift

Huda Tayob

Transnational Practices of Care and Refusal

Samia Henni

Oil, Gas, Dust: From the Sahara to Europe

Megan Eardley

Creole Metrology