Thorsten Brinkmann (*1971 in Herne) happens on the ingredients for his sculptures, photographs, and site-specific installations at dumps, materials that have been abandoned by civilization. Commonplace and bizarre materials are piled up to form pedestals and sculptures, or they are transformed into cabinets of wonders. The artist even uses his own body as an objet trouvé. For his photo series Portraits of a Serial Collector Brinkmann puts on found articles of clothing and stages himself in a setting that is likewise made of found objects. He is a juggler who places equal value on mundane things and introduces them to art in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp. This richly illustrated volume presents the first complete overview of Thorsten Brinkmann's oeuvre, an artist whose combinations of objects playfully make us conscious of the interface between the familiar and the unexpected, between the imaginable and the never-before-imagined.

The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997 was a major achievement in the endeavour to tackle the problem of global climate change at the dawn of the 21st century. After many years of involvement in the negotiation process, the book's two internationally recognised authors now offer the international community a first hand and inside perspective of the debate on the Kyoto Protocol. The book provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the history and content of the Protocol itself as well as of the economic, political and legal implications of its implementation. It also presents a perspective for the further development of the climate regime. These important features make this book an indispensable working tool for policy makers, negotiators, academics and all those actively involved and interested in climate change issues in both the developed and developing world.

In economics, each and every rational decision made is supposed to maximize individual utility. This approach especially applies to the investor in financial goods. In accordance with neoclassical utility optimization, the individual investors are supposed to be willing to exchange investment good in order to maximize their expected future return. This approach anticipates every individual investor to try and estimate the future cash flows of the investment in order to evaluate its current value. Hence, trades at every stock exchange are to be executed at all times where you have two investors differing in their estimation of the intrinsic value of an investment product. As a consequence, every investor is supposed to create a portfolio with assets that in turn maximize his/her expected return. Every investor is supposed to make an individual and rational attempt to maximize his/her utility and to behave in a risk-averse manner. However, according to the neoclassical theory, it is not possible to gain more from an investment than the market does, as long as markets are efficient. Financial markets can be seen as the most efficient markets, if not the only efficient markets in real economy, as, in the market context, information is transferred the fastest and prices are thus adopted nearly instantly. Nevertheless, all investors at the stock exchanges try to make money by using their individual knowledge in order to gain something from investing in some assets. They have of course, at the same time, the possibility to follow the market themselves or to try to bet against the market. Every investor hence always faces the question of whether to trade on the market with his/her own individual knowledge in order to gain some additional utility, or to simply attempt to do the same as the whole market and follow the belief of the market at a whole. The question thus arises of what exactly efficient fund management looks like. This paper will discuss several possibilities which arise in literature and in the real economy when thinking about fund management, and will discuss the rather new concept of “Smart Beta” investments, in particular. The focus of this paper thus lies in the question of whether smart beta concepts serve as potential superior alternatives to the classical passive investment products.

The International Center of Photography exhibition Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, is a global survey of contemporary photography and video art. The exhibition features over 100 recent works by 34 artists from 18 countries. The artists includes Mickalene Thomas, Yto Barrada, Kimsooja, Thorsten Brinkmann, Cindy Sherman, Stan Douglas, and Lorna Simpson.

The contributions to this book explore a phenomenon that appears to be a contradiction in itself – we, the users of computers, can be tracked in digital space for all eternity. Although, on the one hand, one wants to be noticed and noticeable, on the other hand one does not necessarily want to be recognized at the first instance, being prey to an unfathomable public, or – even less so – to lose face. The book documents artistic and other strategies that point out options for appearing in the infinite book of faces whilst nevertheless avoiding being included in any records. The desire not to become a mere object of facial sell-out does not just remain an aesthetic endeavor. The contributions also contain combative and sarcastic statements against a digital dynamic that has already penetrated our everyday lives.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Pacific Design Centre, Los Angeles, Nov. 2009-Mar. 2010 and at the Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona, May 7-23, 2010.

Belgian Museums of the Great War: Politics, Memory, and Commerce examines the handling of the centennial of World War I by several museums along the Western Front in Flanders, Belgium. In the twenty-first century, the museum has become a strategic space for negotiating ownership of and access to knowledge produced in local settings. The specific focus on museums and commemorative events in Flanders allows for an in-depth evaluation of how each museum works with the remembrance and tourist industry in the region while carving a unique niche. Belgian Museums of the Great War writes the history of these institutions, analyzes the changes made in advance of the anniversary years, and considers the site-specificity of each institution and its architectural frame. Since museums not only transmit information but also shape knowledge, as Eileen Hooper-Greenhill has noted, the diverse narratives and community programs sponsored by each museum have served to challenge prior historiographies of the war. Through newly revamped interactive environments, self-guided learning, and an emphasis on the landscape, the museums in Flanders have a significant role to play in the ever-changing dialogue on the meaning of the history and remembrance of the Great War.