Not strictly a tour around the Institute, but we thought we should flag up the fact that Westminster is taking part in Open House London, the capital’s largest architectural showcase, on September 18. Visitors can take a tour of the site of the original Polytechnic opened in 1838, visit the Sports Hall and the site of one of the first public swimming pools in London, and learn the importance in cinematic history of the Old Cinema.

Times: Tours at 10am, 11.30am, 2pm and 3.30pm. Pre-book only, maximum 25 per tour.
Admission: Free.

More information here.

Our friends at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, now safely relocated at Kingston University, have announced their list of seminars for the coming term.

7 October 2010             
Hegel, Kierkegaard and Mediation
Jon Stewart (Kierkegaard Research Centre, Copenhagen University)
Venue: Swedenborg Hall, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way WC1A

21 October 2010           
Philosophy, Capitalism and the Novel
David Cunningham (IMCC, Westminster)
Venue: Ramsay Lecture Theatre, UCL, 20 Gordon Street WC1H

26 October 2010           
Title TBA
Catherine Malabou (University of Paris, Ouest-Nanterre)
Venue: TBA

11 November 2010        
Between Sharing and Antagonism: The Invention of Communism in Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts
Antonia Birnbaum (Philosophy, University of Paris
Venue: Swedenborg Hall

18 or 25 November        
Title TBA
Paul Rabinow (Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley)
Venue: TBA

Job_Description_Programme_Coordinator

MA Visual Culture, University of Westminster, London

Places are still available for September 2010 entry.

The MA in Visual Culture is a unique multi-disciplinary course established around the belief that visual literacy, and the impact of visual forms of thinking and working play a significant role in our contemporary global, network society. The MA balances historical and theoretical debates in the field of visual culture studies with a rigorous interrogation of cultural practices across: contemporary visual arts, capitalism and culture; the material culture of the city; activism and popular politics; institutions and their archives; globalization and new media technologies. The MA also draws upon the cultural institutions and intellectual resources of central London.

The course team is composed of leading scholars, curators, and fine art practitioners. As such it is an intellectual environment conducive to students with similar backgrounds and aspirations, committed and hoping to contribute professionally to the local, national and international world of cultural organisation, the creative economies, and cultural institutions.

For further details: email course-enquiries@westminster.ac.uk, call +44 (0)20915 5511, or visit our website:

For more information on our other courses, MA Cultural and Critical Studies and MA English Literature, as well as our PhD programme in Arts, Humanities, and Cultural Institutions, click here.

The IMCC would like to welcome Courtney Hopf to the University of Westminster as a Visiting Junior Research Fellow during the latter half of 2010. Courtney is completing a PhD at University of California Davis, and her challenging interdisciplinary research concerns the future of narrative theory in the context of interactive, multi-user online collaborations. She will be hosted by the Institute from August 2010 until January 2011.

For more on our Junior Visiting Research Fellowship programme, see here.

We’re delighted to welcome Nigel Mapp to the IMCC from this August. Nigel is joining us at Westminster from the University of Tampere in Finland, and is author of the book Paul de Man (Polity 2011) and co-editor of Adorno and Literature (Continuum 2006). He has published widely on critical theory, deconstruction and early modern literature, and is currently working on literature and disenchantment.

You can now listen to the talks at the Royal Academy Ballardian Architecture symposium last month, including those of IMCC Deputy Director David Cunningham, John Gray, Nigel Coates and Nic Clear.

Audio files are up on the RA site here.

Alexa Wright is currently showing a new configuration of the Alter Ego installation in Locate Me, an exhibition that examines the impact of new communication technologies on traditional concepts of space at Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Bethanien, Berlin, 22 May – 8 August, 2010. More details here.

As part of the re-launch of the Museum of London, Thomson and Craighead are making a new work for the entrance hall. The new displays open from May 28th, and they will be building the commission over the space of a week ending June 6th, so come along and see it there. Works by The Singh Twins and Keith Coventry will also be on display, and the exhibition runs until September 5th. More info here.

Thomson and Craighead are further showing two brand new works, ‘The End’ and ‘The Time Machine in alphabetical order’, in a solo exhibition at Highland institute of Contemporary Art, running from June 20th to July 25th. Finally, you can also hear the duo being interviewed on Resonance FM here.

Stefan’s report on the most excellent Scratch Orchestra event at the Culturgest, Porto, as part of their Cornelius Cardew: The Freedom of Listening exhibition, is now available here and also below the break.

Continue reading Scratch Orchestra Dealer Concert Report

Last Friday 14th May saw the launch of the Architectural Association’s City Cultures project, to which the IMCC’s David Cunningham has been a contributor. The texts from the project, including David’s ‘Nine Theses on the Metropolis’, can be read or downloaded here.

The AA have also posted a video recording of the launch event on their website, with brief talks from David, Doug Spencer, Peter Carl, and others, at: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=1230

For those interested, an earlier talk on Metropolitics by David at the AA, as part of their Landscape Urbanism Public Lectures series, is also up on their website. Watch it here.

Chris Daley and Jo Wargen have set up a useful new wordpress site for the Wednesday lunchtime English Literature Research Seminars run by the Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies at Westminster. The address is: http://seminarserieswmin.wordpress.com/

Check next semester for details of upcoming seminars.

The IMCC’s resident activist artist, and ex-member of the Scratch Orchestra, Stefan Szczelkun, will be taking part in a performance, with Keith Rowe and Carole Finer, as part of Cornelius Cardew and the Freedom of Listening, curated by Dean Inkster, at the Culturgest, Porto on Saturday 15th May. Later on the same evening Stefan will also be in conversation and showing a selection of excerpts from his Active Archives video project.

The Porto exhibition traces the career of the English avant-garde composer Cornelius Cardew, and includes scores and vast archival material of the experimental performances developed by Cardew and the members of the Scratch Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1969, along with posters from the period following Cardew’s decision in the mid-1970s to renounce his work as an avant-garde composer and devote his energy to politics.

Just gone out on the e-flux mailing list, so we thought we might as well post it here also (read on after the break):

Announcing ambitious MA courses and PhD programme in the Arts, Humanities, and Cultural Institutions at the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture (IMCC), School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages, University of Westminster, London.

Continue reading e-flux announcement

A new website documenting the IMCC’s Archiving Cultures series of events and projects is now up at: http://archivingcultures.co.uk/

The website includes programmes, paper abstracts and artworks relating to the Hole in Time, Old Media / New Work and Vernacular Photographic Archives projects taking place at Westminster, in collaboration, respectively, with the Sussex Centre for German-Jewish Studies, the Magic Lantern Society and Photographer’s Gallery.

Archiving Cultures is organised by the IMCC’s Sas Mays and follows on from the 2008-09 research project, funded by the AHRC Beyond Text award, entitled ‘Spiritualism and Technology in Historical and Contemporary Contexts’.

Activating Brixton Art Gallery, 1983-86: Archives and Memories
Saturday 5^th June 2010, 11am-4pm
Westminster Forum, University of Westminster, 32 Wells street, London W1T 3UW

A collaboration between BACA (Brixton Artists Collective Archives) group, and the 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, the project 50 Reasons to Celebrate, Brixton Art Gallery – 1983-86, Archiving Brixton Art Gallery & Artists Collective (2010-2012) will be officially launched in Autumn 2010.  BACA consists of five individual and original members of the Brixton Artists Collective: Teri Bullen, Guy Burch, Françoise Dupré, Rita Keegan, and the IMCC’s Stefan Szczelkun.  They were part of a significant group of artists, the Brixton Artists Collective, and were instrumental in the foundation, development and running of the Brixton Art Gallery.

The ‘Activating Brixton Art Gallery, 1983-86: Archives and Memories’ symposium at Westminster is the first of two university-based symposia that will contribute to the Project’s research and development in relation to content, context, process and dissemination.  An invited group will discuss the Brixton Art Gallery & Artists Collective’s socio-political and artistic concerns and contemporary relevance.

Speakers include: Paul Dash, Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths; Adrian Glew, Tate Archive; Althea Greenan, curator Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths; Ajamu, artist; Sally Mould, Brixton Art Gallery exhibiting artist and Copyart.

The 50 Reasons to Celebrate, Brixton Art Gallery – 1983-86 project promotes and celebrates the achievement and legacy of the Brixton Art Gallery & Artists Collective and provides contexts and opportunities for the re-opening of existing archives and for future archiving of the Gallery and its Collective. The project incorporates public events and participation including a postcard project, an oral history project, a community archiving project, community-based workshops, gallery talks, symposia, a publication and a major archiving exhibition at the 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning (winter 2011). At the end of the Project, Brixton Art Gallery & Artists Collective’s old and new archives will be transferred and donated to Tate Archive for safekeeping and for broader public access (Spring 2012). Lambeth Archives, Tate Archive, Young People’s Programmes, Tate Britain and the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths, University of London have confirmed their support.  Artist Studio Company, Autograph ABP, Birmingham City University, London School of Economics, Hall Carpenter Archive and the University of Westminster are also confirmed partners.  

For further details about the syposium, please contact Stefan Szczelkun at: S.Szczelkun@westminster.ac.uk

For more information about the Brixton Art Gallery and its Collective and first 50 exhibitions please visit the website set up and developed by Brixton Art Gallery & Artists Collective co-founder Andrew Hurman: http://brixton50.co.uk

David Cunningham, Deputy Director of the IMCC, is, along with John Gray and Nic Clear, one of the participants in the symposium Ballardian Architecture: Inner and Outer Space to be held at the Royal Academy of Arts on Saturday 15th May, 2-5pm. The event will trace several themes in Ballard’s literary analysis of the contemporary built environment, including the concept of spectacle and role of the media in contemporary society, and how Ballard’s fascination with so-called “invisible literatures”, such as scientific journals, technical manuals and advertising copy, can be seen as a literary counterpart to pop art and the “brutalist” aesthetic of modernity.

Tickets: £25/£16 reductions* (includes a drink)

Further details here.

Route have posted a video up on their YouTube channel of the launch, back in December, for Michael Nath’s superb debut novel La Rochelle at Westminster. Watch it here. There’s also an interview with Michael on the Route website here.

There have already been excellent reviews for La Rochelle – described by Michael Wood as stylish, very funny, discreetly surprising’ – in both The Independent and the Big Issue. Buy the novel at: www.route-online.com

Due to illness Nick Hubble has unfortunately had to cancel his seminar on ‘Naomi Mitchison: From Intermodernism to Science Fiction’ that was scheduled to take place at Westminster this Wednesday 14th at 1.15pm.

Apologies, and we will of course re-schedule Nick’s paper for a future date some time soon.

Congratulations to our colleagues in Architecture. The magnificent Archigram Archival Project, some four years in the making, launches at Westminster’s Regent Street building on April 19th. Days of online browsing lie ahead.

Once it’s up and running on the 19th, the website will be here: http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/