When a technology is shiny, new, and commercially viable, it operates as a tool of capitalism, shaping human behavior and consumer desires. However, once that technology is rendered obsolete by newer inventions (such as the slide projector being replaced by digital video), it is liberated from its commercial utility.
For students, scholars, and artists searching for the , the quest is not merely about finding a file. It is about accessing a master key to understanding postmodernism, post-media art, and the very structure of visual perception. This article unpacks the essay’s dense arguments, explains why it remains essential reading, and provides legitimate pathways to locating the PDF.
Rosalind Krauss's 1999 essay "Reinventing the Medium" argues that artists in a "post-medium" era must redefine artistic boundaries by grounding practice in specific "technical supports" rather than traditional material mediums. Krauss contends that when media become obsolete, they can be reinvented, citing artists like James Coleman and William Kentridge who create new frameworks for critical engagement. Access the article through UChicago Journals The University of Chicago Press: Journals rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf
Artists must invent rules for new technologies rather than just using them as tools.
– Some scholars post pre-print versions on institutional websites (e.g., Academia.edu or ResearchGate), but always check copyright. When a technology is shiny, new, and commercially
Kentridge’s medium, Krauss argues, is – a recursive loop of making and unmaking.
—a "stone-age" cinematic process—to layer history and memory through physical erasure. Ed Ruscha: automobile It is about accessing a master key to
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Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers is a cornerstone of Krauss’s text. Broodthaers famously created fictional museums and installations utilizing outdated printing techniques, slide projections, and ready-made objects. Krauss argues that Broodthaers used these obsolete tools to mimic and critique the bureaucratic systems of museums and mass media, effectively inventing a new medium out of the debris of the old. Photography and the Mechanical Medium
Rosalind Krauss's 1999 essay "Reinventing the Medium" argues that artists can counter the "deadening generality" of postmodernism by engaging in "redemptive obsolescence," utilizing technologically outdated mediums as new "technical supports". By embracing "differential specificity," artists like James Coleman and William Kentridge redefine artistic mediums through recursive, rule-based structures rather than traditional material purity. Read the full article at Critical Inquiry . Reinventing the Medium | Critical Inquiry: Vol 25, No 2
: You can purchase and download a PDF directly from the Critical Inquiry website on the University of Chicago Press Journals platform.