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Political
Spaces will look into the notion of political
life. It will examine conditions for maintaining free crossover
spheres from the internal-mental space of the individual toward
the external, political space, and back. How does 'the political'
manifest in space: in the assemblies and the performative theatres
of democracy; in friend/enemy relations; in the relations that
build space and/or the relations that control space; in the sites
of resistance and those of acceptance? How does art enter the
discourse of spatial politics and vice versa - can politics be
architecturally or aesthetically embedded? This session is open
to anyone who wants to explore the space of politics or the politics
of space |
| Wednesday, 16th November
2005 |
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TERESA
HOSKYNS, Bartlett, UCL
Invited guest: STEPHEN TILLER
“Performing the Agon”
Agonistic space is a concept
I am working with for my research developed from the political
philosophy of Chantal Mouffe. The space could be described as a
place where 'the political' manifests in space and space that allows
forms of political identity to appear (Rosalynd Deutsche, Tate
Modern) or space that legitimises political identities. The word
agon comes from the ancient Greek meaning ‘struggle’, ‘fight’, ‘contest’,
and ‘trial’. It is also a word used in Greek theatre
describing a particular type of play that has conflict as the central
theme, where the agon is displayed in a piece that consists of
a pair of set speeches of substantial and equal length. In terms
of a building the agon could therefore be seen as a courtroom or
a stadium. Spaces where one side may win but the sides do not reach
agreement.
The workshop will explore how the agon can be
a space of democracy. The link between the democracy and theatre
drawing on work by Brazilian theorist Augusto Boal on forum/theatre.
Steve Tiller (director of War Crime) will direct the space as a
theatre workshop. I intend to record the workshop using film and
show it for comments in the exhibition.
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workshop B
10.00 - 13.00
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GIL
PASTERNAK, Slade, UCL
Invited guest: DAVID GOTHARD
"moving from here to there: a day
in a village"
This workshop aims to illuminate the commonly
overlooked necessity to maintain unity between political experiences
and political theories. To clarify the ever-existing connection
between these two ends David Gothard and Gil Pasternak will highlight
the concept of Movement as that which signifies and embodies the
logical and moral errancy that lives in contradicting one with
the other.
Considering Movement to be an unfinished act that indicates privation
we will think of space as the evasive materialization of imagination.
The workshop will begin in the format of a seminar where we will
think of Movement in relation to other, similar concepts, such
as Speculation, Action, Performance and Appearance. After introducing
a short paper to evoke some of the thoughts that have implored
us to converse on Movement we will suggest Narrative as a means
for performing movement in and between sense-objects and conceptual-objects.
A short film to then expand and explore the implications of such
a point of view will follow this. Finally, we will conclude our
session by directing ourselves to perform one imaginative space,
as it were, together. This will be kept as an open suggestion,
both in terms of participation and inspiration.
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Dr. Jane Rendell (Bartlett) will introduce the following Paper
Session.
Chair: Dr. Rendell
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| 14.00 - 14.30 |
TERESA
HOSKYNS, Bartlett, UCL
“Designing the Agon”
This paper will be based on a paper I wrote for the catalogue of
Making Things Public exhibition in Karlsrhue Germany, curated by
Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. The paper explores the relationship
of space and politics through the investigation of different physical
spaces including the European Parliament, examining Europe’s
role in with the changing forms of representative democracy and globalisation.
I aim to combine the political philosophy of Chantal Mouffe where
she argues that ‘the political’ not consensus must take
the center of the democratic arena. The political defined by Carl
Schmitt as between friend and enemy. I explore what this means spatially
using spaces of resistance and conflict as the basis for thinking
about how one could design a different space of democracy a new political
imaginary.
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| 14.30 - 15.00 |
SAM
ELY and LYNN HARRIS, [Practising Artists]
“Why Work With Existing Structures?”
We would like to discuss the ways in which researching
the existing social/informational/structural mechanics of our
daily lives informs how we perceive the world and how we, as
artists, use this way of thinking to create visual/textual projects.
How do you recognise or understand how to approach a new concept
without first relying on an existing one from which to compare
language, use value, morality, timeliness? We’re not interested
in creating moments of unadulterated inspiration in the form
of an expressive gesture. We’re interested in collating/categorising/appropriating
existing social structures in order to gain a better understanding
of our constructed world and/or to create a shift in perspective
about these existing taken for granted, but rigorously used systems
that enable us to have successful relationships with one another.
The three projects we’d like to focus on all entail the
use of research to gain access to pre-existing contexts that
surround our subject matter. We appropriate and utilise this
information, searching for insightful ways to share this found
knowledge. Primary information is used to shift perception through
understanding.
The three projects are: Unrealised Projects, an ongoing archive
of collected unrealised projects, Change of Use, a listing of
planning proposals highlighting the visible mechanics of gentrification
in London’s East End (part of a project by Apolonija Susteric
at Ibid Projects called Community Research Office) and Why Give
To a Gallery, a service-based project in which we exchanged a
needed door closer with the gallery in return for our own visibility.
We usually seek to create interactive projects that ask for some
sort of participation or collaboration.
This is to activate the ‘socially constructed systems’ that
we are working through, making the mechanics of these representations
explicate.
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| 15.00 - 15.30 |
GARY ANDERSON,
University of Plymouth
“Politicising Practice”
My Ph.D. is where I get to politicise my filmmaking
practice. The paper will begin by indicating some of the ways I
have found the process of ‘contextualisation’ useful
as a researcher and filmmaker. I will do this by drawing on some
experiences in my studies for a Ph.D. at the University of Plymouth,
my filmmaking practice and Walter Benjamin’s 1934 text The
Author as Producer.
I seek to cover this ground as a user of my Ph.D. as well as a user of filmmaking
practices and will trace how I came to use Home Movies as an opportunity to
foreground some aspects of my ‘living, social relations’ as a filmmaker
and researcher.
These introductory comments are a way of contextualising the film I will show.
In the film I seek to develop some ideas on politicisation in a film practice
with reference to some recent and historical political events. In filmic terms
this paper will look to notions of the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spaces
and suggest how a form of political protest might be found in a transition
between the two.
By way of resolution I will summarise some exhibition practices I am developing
and suggest that the context of the exhibition/screening might be just as important
in terms of politicising the filmmaking practice as the form and content of
the film.
In the end I point out that my Ph.D., as something that houses my filmmaking,
both literally and financially, can be a site for politicised filmmaking if
it demands that the filmmaking practice be contextualised into the living social
relations that produce it.
The paper will include a 12 minute film called “Home Movies: Summer 2005”.
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| 15.30 - 16.30 |
discussion |
| 16.30 |
bar |
Evening Event
17.00 - 20.00 |
17:00 - Film screening:
Germany Year Zero [Germania Anno Zero], Roberto Rossellini,
1947
This 78mins movie proclaims its neorealistic attitude by following
the rather theatrical life of a Berliner child in his directed
every day life within the big, destroyed city. As a follow up to
the morning workshop: moving from here to there: a day in a
village,
this film constitutes another component in the exploration and
materialization of movement in the visual arts. The physical movement
of the child in his city-journey leads Rossellini’s camera
to witness the disastrous view of a destroyed post-war city as
well as the child’s quasi-naïve confusion between ethics
and morals. The film uses physical movement to cross the boundaries
between mental and physical spaces. This alternation between small-crowded,
family-like environments on the one end and timid yet, exploitive,
vicious public places on the other, constantly enlightens the interrelationship
between political experience and political contemplation.
Rossellini’s positivist opening statement to the film reads: “This
movie, shot in Berlin in the summer of 1947, aims only to be an
objective and true portrait of this large, almost totally destroyed
city where 3.5 million people live a terrible desperate life, almost
without realizing it. They live as if tragedy were natural, not
because of strength or faith, but because they are tired. This
is not an accusation or even a defence of the German people. It
is an objective assessment.”
18:30 - This part of the evening session will
host Doreen Massey, Chantal Mouffe and Doina Petrescu. This theory/practice
panel will discuss spaces of the political, open democratic spaces
that allow subjectivity to emerge.
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