CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times:About
From CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times
CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times is a repository of artistic projects that exist at the intersection of contemporary culture, critical theory, and civic engagement. It was created by David Darts as part of an ongoing study of contemporary art, emerging technologies, and social practices.
In a world increasingly defined by change, contemporary art and artists can provide powerful lenses for perceiving and understanding the technological, cultural, economic and environmental transformations happening around us. As McLuhan pointed out over 30 years ago, art can serve as a “Distant Early Warning System” that can be relied upon to “tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”
Today, contemporary artists and other cultural producers continue to provide important insights into our rapidly changing global society. These cultural practices can be characterized by their creative ability to expose and critique concealed institutional and political power. Enabled by emerging technologies and social media networks, they challenge dominant cultural, educational, and economic paradigms and offer intellectual and creative tools for reimagining and recreating the status quo.
By revealing tears in the social fabric, theorizing and creating novel approaches to contemporary issues, and developing innovative projects of shared social significance, these artists and practices represent and can inspire important forms of critical reflection, social exchange and creative action. In short, they provide much needed creative tools for critical times.
