Legacy Russell – författare

The divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. How do we find out who we are within this digital era? Where do we create the space to explore our identity? How can we come together and create solidarity? The glitch is often dismissed as an error, a faulty overlaying, but, as Legacy Russell shows, liberation can be found within the fissures between gender, technology and the body that it creates. The glitch offers the opportunity for us to perform and transform ourselves in an infinite variety of identities. In Glitch Feminism, Russell makes a series of radical demands through memoir, art and critical theory, and the work of contemporary artists who have travelled through the glitch in their work. Timely and provocative, Glitch Feminism shows how the error can be a revolution.

The divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. How do we find out who we are within this digital era? Where do we create the space to explore our identity? How can we come together and create solidarity? The glitch is often dismissed as an error, a faulty overlaying, but, as Legacy Russell shows, liberation can be found within the fissures between gender, technology and the body that it creates. The glitch offers the opportunity for us to perform and transform ourselves in an infinite variety of identities. In Glitch Feminism, Russell makes a series of radical demands through memoir, art and critical theory, and the work of contemporary artists who have travelled through the glitch in their work. Timely and provocative, Glitch Feminism shows how the error can be a revolution.

‘[Casteel] captures everyday encounters with people and places in works that invite recognition of our shared humanity.’ – MacArthur FoundationThe first monograph on Jordan Casteel, one of the most critically acclaimed artists working todayJordan Casteel (b.1989 in Denver) is a New York-based artist known for her large-scale, figurative portraits and landscapes made with gestural brushwork and bold swaths of color.From the New York City subway and the streets of Harlem to the woodlands of Upstate New York, Casteel has established a collaborative practice where individuals she has encountered over the course of her daily life are represented in their element, generating an experience that is at once intimate and collective.Casteel's debut monograph features nearly 150 beautifully reproduced images, with sections specially conceived and designed by the artist herself.

In BLACK MEME, Legacy Russell, awardwinning author of the groundbreaking GLITCH FEMINISM, explores the "meme" as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to the present, mining both archival and contemporary media.Russell argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form. These meditations include the circulation of lynching postcards; why a mother allowed JET magazine to publish a picture of her dead son, Emmett Till; and how the televised broadcast of protesters in Selma changed the debate on civil rights. Questions of the media representation of Blackness come to the fore as Russell considers how citizen-recorded footage of the LAPD beating Rodney King became the first viral video. Why the Anita Hill hearings shed light on the media's creation of the Black icon. The ownership of Black imagery and death is considered in the story of Tamara Lanier's fight to reclaim the daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors from Harvard. Meanwhile the live broadcast on Facebook of the murder of Philando Castile by the police after he was stopped for a broken taillight forces us to bear witness to the persistent legacy of the Black meme.Through imagery, memory, and technology, BLACK MEME shows us how images of Blackness have always been central to our understanding of the modern world.

**Shortlisted for the NBCC Award for Criticism**Representations of Blackness have always been integral to our understanding of of the modern world. In Black Meme, Legacy Russell, award-winning author of the groundbreaking Glitch Feminism, explores the construct, culture, and material of the "meme" as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to present day. Mining both archival and contemporary media Russell explores the impact of Blackness, Black life, and death on contemporary conceptions of viral culture, borne in the age of the internet.These meditations include: the circulation of Lynching postcards; Jet Magazine's publication of a picture of Emmett Till in his open casket; how the televised broadcast of protesters in Selma enters the nation's living room and changed the debate on civil rights; how a citizen-recorded video of the Rodney King beating at the hands of the LAPD became known as the "first viral video"; what the Anita Hill hearings tell us about the media's creation of the Black icon; Tamara Lanier's fight to reclaim the photos of her enslaved ancestors, Renty and Delia, from Harvard's archive; the Facebook Live recording by Lavish "Diamond" Reynolds of the murder of her partner Philando Castile by the police after being stopped for a broken tail light; and more.Legacy Russell explores the power of these tokens and argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form.