When Site Lost the Plot

When Site Lost the Plot Robin Mackay (Ed.)Published by Urbanomic March 2015Paperback 148x210mm, 331pp.ISBN 978-0-9575295-6-4  The critical concept of site-specificity once seemed to harbour the potential for disruption. But site-specific work has become increasingly assimilated into the capitalist logic of regeneration and value creation. The materialist critique of the art object has been shortcircuited by the franchised idiosyncrasies of international nomad flaneurs. Meanwhile, on a planet whose entire surface is mapped and apped, the concept of "site" itself becomes ever more problematic. How can we do justice to the particularity of local sites while unearthing their material conditions? What do a contemporary "geo-philosophy" and the historical legacy of site-specific art have to offer each other? Can we develop methods for the controlled unpacking of the local into the global, avoiding trivial reconciliations between local sites and their global conditions? When Site Lost the