This book analyses synchronization as a symptom of the contemporary art world.

Acting as a tool within present-day social, economic, and political systems, synchronization assigns individuals to predetermined forms of representation. At its core, the book challenges normative synchronization concepts as projections of a unity of bodies and voices, past and present, self and environment. The text offers a non-linear art historical narrative of those practices which have consistently tried to ‘desynchronize’ from antisemitism and homophobia. Through thoughtful analysis of art practices from Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Zanele Muholi, Anna Daucikova, Sharon Hayes, Glenn Ligon, and Chantal Akerman, the author seeks to address the current wish to create contemporaneity for all—often through violence against those perceived as not belonging to it.

This book is ideal for researchers and scholars in Art History, Philosophy, Queer Theory, Gender Studies, and Sociology.