“[…] a study of global connections shows the grip of encounter: friction. A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. As a metaphorical image, friction reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power” (Tsing 2005, 5).
No perspective is equal to another. Vision implies a subject that sees and is responsible for their now power to see. Equal positioning denies responsibility (Haraway 1988, 584) and it is dictated by globalisation logics of mainstream and hegemonic cultural and political domination regulated by circulations.
Images circulate globally either through market logics (e.g. art fairs and galleries, international exhibitions and publications), nation states’ cultural diplomacies or through the formless liquidity of online exhibitions or exchange platforms, which we have learnt over the last year that does not substitute but complement on-site exhibitions.
To break down problematic global circulations, there are no precise indications, as Irit Rogoff argues (2017), although the standpoints of the alternatives to global hegemonic narratives gravitate around Anna Tsing’s notion of “friction” as a form of performative imagination able to transform differences in alternative narratives and potential histories.
In an attempt to render alternative narratives to those depoliticised by mass media, the project sees twenty-two authors whose practice and situatedness are heterogeneous, dialoguing around the representation of contemporary society. The locality of Ireland and the views from nine Irish artists emerged as a point of departure to reflect on possibilities of frictions in a glocal context.