Posts from March 2010

Popular Matters at the Whitechapel Salon

Written by on Sunday, posted in Event (No comments yet)
Tagged as , , ,

The Whitechapel Salon: Matter Matters I: Popular Matters
Thursday 13th May, 7pm
Study Studio, Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 7QX

The Whitechapel Salon is back! Spanning art, architecture, performance and sustainability, the forthcoming year-long series of four Salon discussions focus on the matter of ‘matter’ – its nature, substance and the productive forces that govern it. Chris Horrocks, Principal Lecturer, Kingston University and Julian Stallabrass, Reader, Courtauld Institute of Art consider Popular Matters including mass culture, vernacular photography, Web 2.0 and user-generated content.

Book now to avoid disappointment! Book your ticket here.

Tickets: £8/£6 (includes free glass of wine)

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org

From Intermodernism to Science Fiction

Written by on Sunday, posted in Event, News (No comments yet)
Tagged as , ,

Wednesday 14th April, 1.15-2.30pm
Room 106, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, W1T 3UW

Nick Hubble (Brunel University)
‘Naomi Mitchison: From Intermodernism to Science Fiction (via Mass-Observation)’

From her 1920s novels, influenced by Lawrence but aimed at the audience of Wells, to her subsequent deployment of modernist techniques for political ends, Naomi Mitchison may be considered a key intermodern writer. Her literary output during the 1930s – The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931), Beyond This Limit (1934; a feminist fantasy illustrated by Wyndham Lewis), We Have Been Warned (1935), The Moral Basis of Politics (1938) and The Blood of the Martyrs (1939) – is comparable with Orwell’s. Her relentless pursuit of the ‘just society’, free from gender-based and sexual repression, made her a controversial figure even in that controversial decade. And her close literary associates of that decade – including Auden, Aldous Huxley, Olaf Stapledon, Stevie Smith, Wyndham Lewis and Walter Greenwood – suggest different ways of thinking about literary networks and cultural history in general. She was also a friend and supporter of Tom Harrisson and Mass-Observation, for whom she kept a wartime diary. Nick Hubble’s paper analyses this intermodern work and investigates how it relates to Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962), a forerunner of the 1970s feminist utopian science fiction of writers such as Ursula Le Guin, Marge Piercy and Joanna Russ.

Free to all.

21st Century London: Rachel Lichtenstein

Written by on Saturday, posted in Event (No comments yet)
Tagged as ,

Thursday 22nd April, 6pm
The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, W1B 2UW

In the final event in the 21st Century London series of talks at Westminster Rachel Lichtenstein, author of Brick Lane and (with Iain Sinclair) Rodinsky’s Room, and Visiting Fellow at the IMCC, will be speaking at Regent Street.  

For more information, please email Monica Germana at m.germana@westminster.ac.uk. Events are free of charge, but booking is essential: please email Sharon Sinclair at sinclas@wmin.ac.uk to book a place.

PROGRAMME FOR THE 2010 VISUAL CULTURE STUDIES CONFERENCE


Written by on Friday, posted in Conference, News (2 comments)
Tagged as

To book email info@instituteformodern.co.uk or download the booking form
Date: Thursday 27th May 2010 – Saturday 29th May 2010

Venue: The Old Cinema, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London


Cost: £50/25 concessions, booking essential 

Thursday 27th May 2010

12:00 Registration

1:00-2:15 Session 1

W.J.T. Mitchell (English and Art History, University of Chicago)

2:15-4:15 Session 2 Roundtable: Education

Mark Dunhill (School of Art, Central Saint Martins College)

William Cobbing (Wimbledon College of Art)

Joanne Morra (School of Art, Central Saint Martins College)

Adrian Rifkin (Art Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London)

Joy Sleeman (History and Theory of Art, Slade School of Fine Art)

Victoria Walsh (Education and Interpretation, Tate Britain)

4:45-6:30 Session 3

Gary Hall (Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University)

Joanna Zylinska (Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London)

6:30-8:30: Reception

Friday 28th May 2010

10:00-11:15 Session 4

Keith Moxey (Art History and Archaeology, Columbia)

11:15-1:00 Session 5

Divya P. Tolia-Kelly (Geography, Durham University)

David Cunningham (Cultural & Critical Studies, University of Westminster);

1:00-2:00 Lunch (Not provided)

2:00-4:00 Session 6 Roundtable: Design Studies – Visual Studies – Cultural Studies

Glen Adamson (Design/Craft, RCA/V&A)

Sarah Chaplin (Architectural Humanities, Greenwich University)
Elizabeth Guffey (Design, SUNY, Purchase)

Raiford Guins (Digital Cultural Studies, SUNY, Stony Brook)

Guy Julier (Design, Leeds Metropolitan University)

Penny Sparke (Design History, Kingston University)

4:30-5:45 Session 7

Lisa Cartwright (Communication, UC, San Diego) 

Saturday 29th May 2010

10:30-11:45 Session 8
Nicholas Mirzoeff (Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University)

11:45-1:30 Session 9


Esther Leslie (Political Aesthetics, Birkbeck, University of London)
Esther Gabara (Romance Studies, and Art, Art History, & Visual Studies, Duke University)

1:30-2:30 Lunch (Not provided)

2:30-4:30 Session 10 Roundtable: The Future Institution: An International Association for Visual Culture Studies?

Michael Ann Holly (The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown)

Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London) 
Stephen Melville (Art/Aesthetics/Philosophy, Ohio State University)

Griselda Pollock (Art Histories/Cultural Studies, University of Leeds)

Marquard Smith (Visual Culture Studies, University of Westminster)

4:30 Conference Ends

Organizers: Nicholas Mirzoeff (New York University), Joanne Morra (University of the Arts London), Marquard Smith (University of Westminster, London)

Toby Litt on London

Written by on Friday, posted in Event (No comments yet)
Tagged as , ,

Thursday 11th March, 6pm
The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, W1B 2UW

Following a successful first event with urban visionary Iain Sinclair, in the second of a new series of talks at Westminster entitled 21st Century London, exploring the challenges and opportunities the city offers to the contemporary writer, Toby Litt will be speaking at Regent Street.  Toby was winner of the 2009 Manchester Fiction Prize, and his many novels include Corpsing (2000), Ghost Story (2004) and Hospital (2007). Future speakers will be Diran Adebayo (March 18) and visiting research fellow at the Institute Rachel Lichtenstein (April 22).

For more information, please email Monica Germana at m.germana@westminster.ac.uk. Events are free of charge, but booking is essential: please email Sharon Sinclair at sinclas@wmin.ac.uk to book a place.

War in Liverpool

Written by on Friday, posted in Exhibition (No comments yet)
Tagged as , , ,

Thomson & Craighead will be showing ‘A Short Film about War’ as an installation for the first time at the MyWar exhibition at the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, running from March 12 – May 30 2010. It will appear alongside works by Phil Collins, Renzo Martens, Milica Tomic, Knowbotic Research, Harun Farocki, Sarah Vanagt, Joseph Delappe, Oliver Laric, Dunne & Raby, Harrell Fletcher and SWAMP.

Animate Projects have also commissioned Lisa LeFeuvre to write a contextual essay about the piece, which is available on their website to read and download as a diffusion book alongside a streaming version of the work. Read Lisa’s essay here.

Literary haunted houses

Written by on Monday, posted in Event (No comments yet)
Tagged as , ,

Wednesday 10th March, 1.15-2.30pm
Room 106, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, W1T 3UW

Andrew Smith (University of Glamorgan)
‘Haunted Houses and History: Locating the Anglo-American in Henry James’

Free to all.