9islands

I see Nicolas Bourriaud’s term, altermodern, as related to Cusset’s chapter 13, “Worldwide Theory: A Global Legacy,” where he discusses a new kind of mix “unhindered by borders.”
Quoting the final sentences in Cusset’s book: “…a zone formed completely of interstices, within which, far from the guardians of the Work, texts themselves will be put to work. They will embed themselves along various paths, will tattoo the body, will invest practices, and will bring together new communities. It is within such an interval that the invention of French theory began to play out in the United States around the beginning of the 1980s; this interval is still open, and in this open space it has kept its strength intact.” (Cusset p338)

I have been reading about The Islanders project by Charles Avery in the Altermodern show. Here are a couple of related things:

National Gallery of Scotland
The Islanders project began in 2004. Its author, Charles Avery, was born in Mull in 1973; it was the life of this isle that inspired Avery to create an imaginary Island in rich detail, from its strange beasts to its fantastical gods.
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From Art in America interview with Nicolas Bourriaud
BR: What is the ‘Altermodern?’
NB: First, it is an attempt to reexamine our present, by replacing one periodizing tool with another. After 30 years into the ‘aftershock’ of modernism and its mourning, then into the necessary post-colonial reexamination of our cultural frames, ‘Altermodern’ is a word that intends to define the specific modernity according to the specific context we live in – globalization, and its economic, political and cultural conditions. The use of the prefix “alter” means that the historical period defined by postmodernism is coming to an end, and alludes to the local struggles against standardization. The core of this new modernity is, according to me, the experience of wandering — in time, space and mediums. But the definition is far from being complete.
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