With Manuel Prados and George Yúdice

Launched online on May 20, 2021.

What’s behind our screens? Manuel Prados and George Yúdice engage this important question by tracing the origin of the physical elements that make up the surfaces we use every day to see hundreds of images. What are some of the social, cultural, and physical implications of obtaining them, such as the transformation of Earth’s territory and landscape, and the growing race to extract these elements in outer space? This dialogue reviews a series of artistic works from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that highlight intersections of material, symbolic, and monetary value, as well as topics that specifically deal with the extraction, trade, and artistic use of the raw materials (especially rare earth metals) that are used in screens, and their social repercussions.

MOAD. Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College