Futures of the Contemporary [Book review]

This book is a collection of essays published by Lueven University Press in conjunction with the Orpheus Institute in Ghent. While the central concern of the book is nominally
contemporary art in toto, the latter institution is centred around “artistic research in music,” and accordingly many of the ten contributors are of a sonic arts bent. For example the musicologist and performer Paulo de Assis, the composer and opera director Heiner Goebbels, and the sound artists Geoff Cox, Andrew Prior, and Ryan Nolan. A central reference for almost all of the contributors is Giorgio Agamben; only two don’t cite his 2008 essay ‘What is the Contemporary?’ In this piece, Agamben defines the contemporary as ‘a singular relationship with one’s own time, which adheres to it and, at the same time, keeps a distance from it.’