On Following

“This is a truly remarkable book. Following the myriad modifications of the often hidden, if not invisible, ‘straight lines’ forming the vectors and relays subtending our technological world in art, music, film, architecture, literature, and design from the machine age to digital culture, Blom offers nothing less than an expansive alternative genealogy of the media ecologies of our present. Rich in material, theoretically versed, and full of historical insight, her impressive account of the affective modulations of the senses in the avant-gardes, post-Cagean practices, and contemporary art will prove indispensable for understanding the role and reach of aesthetics in perceiving and navigating the increasingly interconnected infrastructures of everyday life.”

-- André Rottmann, Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt

“Blom’s On Following explores modalities of tracing that, historically germinated by the graphic line as a site of cognitive mastery, transform the operative capacity, charting beyond contour or diagram to expand the very definition of the senses and of sensing as a condition of life within expanded infrastructures. From the aesthetic impact of nineteenth-century psychophysical experiments through the work of, among others, August Endell, Marcel Duchamp, Mies van der Rohe, La Monte Young, Jenny Holzer, Superstudio, Liam Gillick, and Ryoji Ikeda, On Following notes the proliferation of indices that move across art, technology, media, and architecture.”

-- Jaleh Mansoor, University of British Colu