Together, the projects featured in Feedforward create a complex picture of the global political and social forces that drive us forward. The exhibition features both the problematic aspects of the present and future, and the potential for collectivity and responsible action. At the nadir of the current global economic crisis, Feedforward is in effect about cleaning up after the 20th century and asks the question, what is progress now?

A comprehensive, timely international survey that addresses the relationship between art and electronic technology, this volume explores the presence and meanings of mechanics, light, graphics, robots, virtual reality and the Web in the art and visual culture of the last hundred years. It also considers the reaction, development and future of artistic practice in the face of new technology

Burgos expands urban apocalyptic visions which proliferate in daily life. His starting point is a children’s storybook, from which he constructs a delirious collage. Anything is possible in his productions. With amazing dexterity he cuts, pastes, digitally photocopies and photocopies again, the result of which he fits into a fascinating stage design. Within these metaphors, there are, mingled with a large cast of characters, iconic elements of national images

Letizia Battaglia’s pictures, because of the corruption, silence, violence and suffering they laid bare, played a crucial role in the anti-mafia campaign. They show anti-mafia Judge Cesare Terranova shot in his car, corpses of mafiosi found by the road, tears of the wives and mothers when they discover the scene of the crime, arrests of the mafia boss, teenagers pretending to be though guys with attitude and guns

In a series of symbiotic encounters and parasitic relationships, the solo presentations are often interrupted by incongruous presences or perturbed by unusual juxtapositions: drawings by Kara Walker surround a tomb by Urs Fischer; Maurizio Cattelan’s homeless man kneels down in front of Kiki Smith’s Bat Woman; Robert Gober’s haunted rooms incorporate Gregor Schneider’s architectural fragments, etc.

Like paper projects designed in the absence of “real” architecture, installations offer architects another way to engage in issues critical to their practice. Direct experimentation with architecture’s material and social dimensions engages the public around issues in the built environment that concern them and expands the ways that architecture can participate in and impact people’s everyday lives

Nathalie Djurberg makes candy-coloured plasticine puppets who have have orgies, who torture each other and suffer alien, abusive relationships. Djurberg, who won the Silver Lion award for best young artist at the Biennale, was the super star of Venice. I went to see her video installation 3 times and the room was always jam-packed with people drooling over her animations and taking photos of her monstruous flowers as if their lives depended on it. Not that i acted any differently

Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón has opened a very very good exhibition a few days ago. ‘FEEDFORWARD – The Angel of History’ addresses the current moment in history where the wreckage of political conflict and economic inequality is piling up, while globalized forces–largely enabled by the “progress” of digital information technologies–inexorably feed us forward. I’ll write about it in details in the near future but i’d like to share with you straight away one of the most interesting artworks i’ve discovered there

I doubt there are many galleries like heliumcowboy. First there’s that name. Charming and puzzling. Not even an interview with the gallery director has helped me uncover its origin. Then of course there’s the artists the space represents. Since its opening in 2003, heliumcowboy has been showcasing artists ‘who are capable of pushing boundaries, are a little underground and whose aesthetic is the forecast of art’

No one dons the moustache like Fernando Llanos. He’s a video artist, a musician, a writer, a blogger, a curator, he makes drawings, he’s the über macho-looking Mexican guy who walks around the city with a chihuahua in his bag. He also produces tv shows, a competition of animation movies, and the moto of his own radio programme is “There’s no need to talk about art in order to talk about art”. When he’s not performing Llanos is always impeccably dressed. He’s probably the one and only media artist whose sense of style i admire

In the 19th century, despite the best efforts of body snatchers, the demand from medical schools for fresh cadavers far outstripped the supply. One solution to this gruesome problem came in the form of lifelike wax models. These models often took the form of alluring female figures that could be stripped and split into different sections. Other models were more macabre, showing the body ravaged by ‘social diseases’ such as venereal disease, tuberculosis and alcohol and drug addiction

Digital Fabrications explores the methods architects use to calibrate digital designs with physical forms. The book is organized according to five types of digital fabrication techniques: tessellating, sectioning, folding, contouring, and forming. Projects are shown both in their finished forms and in working drawings, templates, and prototypes, allowing the reader to watch the process of each fantastic construction unfold