FORECLOSURE
Brunel University & University of Westminster
1st Joint Researching the Arts/Social Sciences Conference for Research Students

The Pavilion, University of Westminster, 115 New Cavendish Street, London
June 17 & 18, 2013, 10:30-5pm

Keynote: Oren Ben-Dor, University of Southampton
‘Placial [in]justice: reflections on the wounded origin of political affectation’

Please join us at this two-day interdisciplinary conference Foreclosure that aims to bring together law, art and politics.  We understand foreclosure as the art of ordering and securing a common ground for the unfolding of a common experience; the exchange of affects and perspectives; and the performance of bodies and spaces. Art, Law and Politics habitually build walls around their concepts and practices. Foreclosure aims to encourage the exploration of practices and performances of law, art and politics through the prism of their shared operation; the investigation of the juncture between their disciplinary fences; and the unfolding of the fragility of their mechanisms. This is our aim: to dissect, dismantle and improve the operations of art, law and politics in order to locate cracks, produce apertures, and ride the lines of flight where new potentialities are generated.  The conference programme is attached.

Admission is free but places are limited. RSVP at foreclosuresconference@gmail.com

The Mediated City
Two multidisciplinary conferences examining “the city”… a virtual, filmic, social, political and physical construct.

The Mediated City examines the metropolis as a contested concept. It offers a platform for multiple and diverse examinations of the city. It aims to bring together people from diverse backgrounds to fragment, multiply and reconfigure our readings of the city; to offer multiple and conflicting discipline perspectives. The intention is to share views of the city as physical entity, online community, film set, photographic backdrop, geographical map, sociological case study, political metaphor, digital or video game etc.. – to examine it as a mediated and shared phenomenon.

London Conference
April 1-3 2014, Ravensbourne College

Los Angeles Conference
October 2014 (tbc), Woodbury University

London Conference deadlines
15 September 2013: abstracts / initial proposals

Possible Formats:
20 minute presentations
60 minute panel discussions on selected themes
Workshop collaborative sessions
Screenings / Q&As

For full details visit: http://architecturemps.com

An Encounter with Agnes Heller

Tuesday 11^th June, 11am – 7pm
The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Organised by our friends in the Centre for the Study of Democracy

10.30-11.00 Registration

11.00-1.00 Roundtable I
Bethania Assey (Rio de Janeiro), Laura Boella (Milan), David Cunningham (Westminster), David Roberts (Monash)

2.30-4.30 Roundtable II
Albena Azmanova (Kent), Steglinde Rosenberger (Vienna), Kate Soper (London Met), Simon Tormey (Sydney)

5.00-6.30 Public Lecture by Agnes Heller
“What went wrong with the religion of Reason?”
Chaired by Chantal Mouffe

This is a free event but registration is required.
Registration link: csdagnesheller.eventbrite.com

E. gemma.jamieson@my.westminster.ac.uk

Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy and the Politics of Youth

Friday 31 May & Saturday 1 June 2013
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

Friday 31^st May

13.15-14.00 Registration
14.00 –14.30 Welcome
14.30-15.30 Antonia Birnbaum (Paris 8), ‘The Life of Students is a Great Transformer’
16.00-17.00 Howard Caygill (CRMEP), ‘Attunement and Interference:
Benjamin’s Hölderlin Reading’

Saturday 1^st June

09.45-10.30 Registration
10.30-11.30 Milan Jaros (Newcastle), ‘Quo Vadis? Knowing and being in the digital age’
12.00-13.00 Élise Derroitte (Louvain), ‘Chockerlebnis and Education: Learning from Modern Experience’
13.00-14.15 Lunch
14.15-15.15 Mike Neary (Lincoln), ‘Student as Producer’
15.30-17.00 Howard Eiland (MIT), ‘Education as Awakening’, with Response by Peter Osborne (CRMEP)

The conference is free, open to all and there is no need to pre-register. Attendance on each day will be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis: the registration desk will be open on Friday 31st May from 13:15 – 14:00 and on Saturday 1st June from 9:45 – 10:30 and will be located in the main entrance hall to the University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London.

Further details: http://benjaminpedagogy.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/conference-announcement/
Help publicise the conference: http://www.facebook.com/events/339458196165504/

Saturday 8 June, 3pm-5pm
Clore Creative Studio, Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 7QX

The Whitechapel Salon: Between Philosophy and Practice

We are pleased to announce a one-off Whitechapel Salon organised by the IMCC in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and the Institut Français, London.

From the classroom to the studio, what is the status of philosophy in contemporary art teaching and practice? With guests Elie During, Stewart Martin and Jean-Marie Schaeffer. Hosted by David Cunningham and Marquard Smith (Westminster).

Elie During is Maître de Conférences in the Department of Philosophy at the Université de Paris Ouest – Nanterre La Défense. His publications include La Science et l’Hypothèse: Poincaré (2001), Faux raccords: la coexistence des images (2010), Bergson et Einstein: la querelle du temps (2013), and, in collaboration with Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, Donatien Grau and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Qu’est-ce que le curating? (2011). He is on the editorial board of the journal Critique.

Stewart Martin is Senior Lecturer in Modern European Philosophy, Aesthetics and Art Theory at Middlesex University. He has published widely on Critical Theory, capitalism and philosophy, and contemporary art in journals including Mute, Oxford Art Journal and Third Text. He is a member of the editorial collective of the journal Radical Philosophy.

Jean-Marie Schaeffer is Directeur d’études at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and Directeur de recherche at the Centre International d’Etude de la Philosophie Française Contemporaine. His publications include Petite écologie des études littéraires (2010), La fin de l’exception humaine (2007), Why Fiction? (2011; originally in French, 1999), Art of the Modern Age (2000; French, 1992), and, in collaboration with Nathalie Heinich, Art, création, fiction. Entre philosophie et création (2004).

Tickets £8/6 concessions (£4 Members). Booking is essential.

Book your ticket at: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/product/category_id/22/product_id/1644?session_id=13694768703e937a4cd471a409be17f1ad7f6d57df

Wednesday 29 May, 2013, 17.00 pm
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B

UK Premieres of Farewell 1999 (25’) and The Dream Never Sets (74’), directed by Wu Wuna
Followed by conversation between Wu Wuna, Professor Harriet Evans and Dr. Kiki Yu

Following up on Farewell 1999 about her mother, The Dream Never Sets is another highly personal documentary from Wu Wuna, this time focusing on her father, who has claimed to be an inventor of note for as long as she can remember. A somewhat lighter, though equally complex offering, the film reviews her difficult relationship with the man who introduced sex toys to Taiwan and who now dreams of marketing the ultimate food blender around the world. The film sees Wu laying bare their often strained father-daughter bond in an effort to understand it herself, matters being made more difficult when she learns that he is seriously ill.

Organised as part of the 2013 Chinese Visual Festival.

Walter Benjamin, Pedagogy and the Politics of Youth

Friday 31 May & Saturday 1 June 2013
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

Provisional programme now announced:

Friday 31^st May

13.15-14.00 Registration

14.00 –14.30 Welcome

14.30-15.30 Antonia Birnbaum (Paris 8), ‘The Life of Students is a Great Transformer’

16.00-17.00 Howard Caygill (CRMEP), ‘Attunement and Interference:
Benjamin’s Hölderlin Reading’

Saturday 1^st June

09.45-10.30 Registration

10.30-11.30 Milan Jaros (Newcastle), ‘Quo Vadis? Knowing and being in the digital age’

12.00-13.00 Élise Derroitte (Louvain), ‘Chockerlebnis and Education: Learning from Modern Experience’

13.00-14.15 Lunch

14.15-15.15 Mike Neary (Lincoln), ‘Student as Producer: a pedagogy of the avant-garde; or, how do revolutionary teachers teach?’

15.30-17.00 Howard Eiland (MIT), ‘Education as Awakening’, with Response by Peter Osborne (CRMEP)

The conference is free, open to all and there is no need to pre-register. Attendance on each day will be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis: the registration desk will be open on Friday 31st May from 13:15 – 14:00 and on Saturday 1st June from 9:45 – 10:30 and will be located in the main entrance hall to the University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London.

Further details: http://benjaminpedagogy.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/conference-announcement/

Help publicise the conference: http://www.facebook.com/events/339458196165504/

Never Odd or Even

Carroll-Fletcher, 56 – 57 Eastcastle St, London W1W 8EQ
May 24 – July 6 2013

This is the first survey exhibition by Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead in the UK, bringing together a range of new and recent works.

Interested in how information about the world is filtered through the prism of the world wide web, and other forms of information technology, Thomson & Craighead play with this data to create poetic, compelling works that ask fundamental questions about what it is to be human.

Encompassing small-scale quotidian encounters, as well as works that point up the smallness of humankind in the vastness of the universe, there is a lyricism and lightness of touch that enables the artists to address major political and social themes from unexpected angles.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication with an essay by David Auerbach. The publication can be purchased from the gallery or via the online shop. The essay can be downloaded here.

The Museum of Contemporary Cuts (MoCC) is developing a research project, under the directorship of Lanfranco Aceti, to assess and map the impact of the arts funding reductions in several European Countries and North America, and would like to invite individuals and funded organizations to contribute their data.

This is a form that will provide us with the data regarding art organizations that have closed as a consequence of the current economic crisis or that have had their funding cut.

The research project will analyze the impact of the current economic crisis on the arts throughout the following countries (Austria, Canada, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States) comparing official data with data provided on each specific territory.
The project aims to create a repository of data that can be accessed and poured through to gain a clear impression of the affected organizations and the current state of the arts from 2007 to present.

MoCC will create, using the information gathered, a series of data visualizations, as well as art commissions, curatorial projects, exhibitions, research analyses and publications. It will promote initiatives that will be showcased and presented at international events and biennials.

At the end of 2012, one such organization effected, was the NIMk. The activities of the Netherlands Media Art Institute ceased as of 31 December, 2012.

To assist us with this task, we are asking individuals and arts organizations to send us the following information on the art organizations that have closed or have received funding cuts in the period 2007 – present.

You can provide this information by using our online web form available at this link: http://museumofcontemporarycuts.org/deadly-cuts-form/

Also, we would like to display, online, the Letter of Funding Cuts that art institutions received during the period 2007 – present.

These Letter of Funding Cuts can be scanned at 300dpi resolution and emailed to: museumofcontemporarycuts@gmail.com or posted, as a physical copy to be archived by MoCC.

Postal address: Ref. Letter of Funding Cuts To: Lanfranco Aceti, MoCC Director, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Orhanli/Tuzla, 34956 Istanbul, Turkey

Letters should be sent ideally by December 31, 2013 – but we will continue to accept them throughout the life of the Museum of Contemporary Cuts.

Enquires about this particular project, collaborations for exhibitions and research with MoCC should be sent to: info@museumofcontemporarycuts.org

To stay informed please subscribe to our newsletters: http://www.lanfrancoaceti.com/newsletters

Follow MoCC on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MuseumOfContemporaryCuts

Follow MoCC on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MoCC_2012

We acknowledge the support of Operational and Curatorial Research (OCR), International Association for Visual Culture, Kasa Gallery, Sabanci University, Chelsea College, Westminster University and Goldsmiths College.

Image credit: Jonathan Munro, Vacant, 2013. Digital image.

Group for War and Culture Studies, University of Westminster, Research Seminar Series 2012/2013

Through the Looking Glass: Shifting Perceptions of War

Wednesday 8 May 2013, 6 pm – 8 pm, Room 351
University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Joram ten Brink, University of Westminster
‘The Act of Killing’

Joram will talk about a documentary he recently produced: “The Act of Killing”, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and a major outcome of the Arts & Humanities Research Council’s Genocide and Genre Research Project awarded to The Centre for Research and  Education in Arts and Media at the University of Westminster. The documentary challenges former Indonesian death squad leaders to re-enact their real-life mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers. The film has received widespread critical acclaim most recently at the Toronto and the Berlin Film Festivals.

Maki Kimura, University College London
‘Narrative as a Site of Subject Construction: The “Comfort Women” Debate’

The ordeal of `Comfort Women’ who were sexually enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Military during the Second World War became widely known in the 1990s through these women’s accounts of their experience. Instead of considering their narratives as historical data which reflect the `true’ historical past, the talk locates them within a broader framework of thinking of narratives. Drawing on the understanding of narrative as a key to the self and the subject which has been developed in narrative research, as well as Judith Butler on interpellation and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on subaltern agency, the talk argues that the `Comfort Women’s’ testimonies should not be read one-dimensionally in the light of `truth’ and `falsity’, but should rather be considered as the site of their subject-formation. Their narratives are where agency concurrently emerges, and `Comfort Women’ are thus not powerless victims but are active participants in their creation of their own narratives and their own selves.

Entrance free. To reserve a place, please R.S.V.P. Dr Caroline Perret at: C.Perret@westminster.ac.uk

Hosted by our friends in the Contemporary China Centre:

Chinese Kunqu opera talk and demonstration
London Jing Kun Opera Association, led by Kathy Hall

Wednesday 3 April 2013,  5.30 – 7.30pm
Room 451, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

Kunqu (Kun Opera) enjoys national opera status in China. It is highly refined, visually stunning and very demanding on the actor. The four elements of singing, recitation, acting/movement, and martial arts form the basis of this musical and dramatic art. Strict control and pace, but also immense fluidity, are required in the performers’ use of hands, eyes, body, and feet. Dynamic interaction between actors and musicians in performance further adds to its vibrancy. In recognition of the intrinsic value of Kunqu, in May 2001 UNESCO declared it one of the first 19 ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’.

The programme includes: a short movement demonstration, typical of the elegance of the Kunqu opera dan; slide show and talk; musicians from the London Jing Kun Opera Association Kunqu Ensemble talking about their learning and performing experience; performance with musicians, including invitation to the audience to sing some lines with accompaniment.

All welcome, but non-University of Westminster attendees please register with Dr Derek Hird: d.hird@westminster.ac.uk

The Smithsonian-Westminster Colloquium
Thursday 25^th April 2013, 6.15 – 8.00 p.m.
The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

“Museum Futures”
A conversation with Lonnie Bunch, Director of the National American Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

All welcome, but please RSVP to: Sharon Sinclair: sinclas@westminster.ac.uk

Archiving: China in Britain #5
Saturday April 27^th, 2013, 9:30am – 5:00pm
The Boardroom, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

10:00 ‘Shifting tastes in Chinese art: a history of the Berkeley Smith collection of Chinese ceramics at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum (1921-1958)’, Louise Tythacott (University of Manchester )

10:30 ‘Let’s talk about the money’, Helen Wang (Dept of Coins and Medals, The British Museum)

11.15 ‘The First Chinese Books in London’, Frances Wood (Keeper of China Collections at the British Library)

12:15 ‘Mapping An Archive of Chinese Representations in British Cinema’, Hiu M. Chan (University of Cardiff)

12:45 Title TBA, Katie Hill (Sotheby’s)

1:30 – 2:30 Lunch

2:30 ‘The Historical Photographs of China Project’, Robert Bickers (University of Bristol)

3.15 ‘Found In Time: My Shanghai Heritage’, Peter Hibbard MBE (Former President and Founder of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society)

3.45 ‘Maoist posters in London: A perspective from the University of Westminster’, Emily Williams (University of Westminster)

5:00 Drinks Reception

Wednesday 20th March, 4.00pm – 5.30pm
Room 106, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London W1T

Matthew Charles (University of Westminster)
‘Brecht as Educator’

Educating Mind, Body & Spirit: Adult Education since 1838
24 and 25 April 2013

Staff and graduate students from the Institute will be contributing to the two-day conference ‘Educating Mind, Body & Spirit: Adult Education since 1838.’ Fees for the two days, including refreshments, are £60 or £30 for students/unwaged. To book, please email archive@westminster.ac.uk Other enquiries may be directed to Dr Helen Glew via h.glew@westminster.ac.uk

Day 1

10.30 Welcome/Opening Remarks

10.40 Keynote: Mark Freeman, University of Glasgow, ‘Writing the History of Adult Education: Where Next?’

11.40 Coffee

11.55 John K Walton, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria, ‘Adult Education in the Humanities: What Sort of Future?’

12.30 Lunch

13.20 Panel: Adult Education and Institutions
Contributions from Elaine Penn, Darlene Clover, Kathy Sandford, Maureen Park, Kate James, Edward Bottoms, and Jim Rahahan

15.00 Coffee

15.20 Panel: Educating Through Culture
Contributions from Alex Warwick, Neil Mattews, Sara Dominici, Tom Woodin

18.30 Reception

Day 2

9.45 Panel: Gender and Adult Education
Contributions from Helen Glew, Fay Lundh Nilsson, Mervi Kaaminen, and Lajos Olasz

11 Coffee

11.20 Panel: Adult Education Initiatives and Personalities
Contributions from: Peter Catherall, Bill Bailey and Lorna Unwin, Lawrence Goldman, and Kate Bradley

12.50 Lunch

13.50 Keynote: William Whyte, University of Oxford, ‘Still Travelling in a Strange Country? Writing Adult Education back into the History of Universities’

14.50 Coffee

15.00 Panel: Adult Education: Comparative Perspectives
Contributions from Mark Freeman, Jana Sims, Kirsi Ahonen, Darly Leeworthy, and Anders Nilsson

16.50 Closing Remarks

Modernity on Display: Technology, Science and the Culture Wars at International Expositions circa World War II

Thursday 4^th April 2013, 4 – 7 p.m.
Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW.

Speakers:
Professor Robert Kargon, Willis K. Shepard Professor of the History of Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Dr Arthur Molella, Director, The Lemelson Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

International expositions are receiving significant attention from historians of science and technology, and of culture more generally. These complex events mirror ideological and national rivalries as well as domestic social, economic and political struggles. In short, they are remarkable indices of important historical tensions. Especially interesting are the international expositions planned and/or mounted just before the outbreak of the Second World War. These expositions reflected the political regimes of the host countries, and in some cases serious divisions within them. They also highlight increasingly tense ideological divisions between nations representing liberal or social democratic republics (France and the US), communist (Soviet Union) and reactionary modernist or fascist regimes such as Germany, Italy and Japan.

The book in progress on which this seminar will be based includes chapters about World’s Fairs and expositions from 1937 to 1942, drawing upon three actually built, Paris, 1937, Dusseldorf 1937 and New York 1939, and two planned in detail but, owing to the coming of war, never executed, Tokyo 1940 and Rome 1942. The presentations will use two examples – New York 1939 and Rome 1942 – to illuminate the representation of science and technology at these fairs as indicators of modernity as part of the on-going culture and propaganda wars preceding actual hostilities.

Organised by the Graduate School, University of Westminster

R.S.V.P. Sharon Sinclair, sinclas@westminster.ac.uk

ARCHIVING CHINA IN BRITAIN

Saturday 27 April, 9.30am–6pm
The Boardroom, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

This one-day conference is co-hosted by the Department of English, Lingusitics and Cultural Studies with the University of Westminster Contemporary China Centre, keeper of the Chinese Poster Collection, an archival holding of more than 800 posters from the Mao era.

RSVP anne@translatingchina.info

For further details please visit translatingchina.info

From our friends at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy. Now Open for Registration:

Romantic Transdisciplinarity: Art and the New
May 8–9 2013
Senate House, University of London, Malet Street (http://goo.gl/maps/Sjkmr)

An International Conference about the transdisciplinary legacies of early German Romanticism in contemporary theory and practice in the arts and humanities. Organised by the CRMEP as part of its AHRC project on Transdisciplinarity and the Humanities in collaboration with the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Speakers include:
Howard Caygill (CRMEP, Kingston University)
David Cunningham (English, IMCC, University of Westminister)
Boris Groys (Slavic Studies, NYU)
Claude Imbert (Philosophy, ENS, Paris)
Gertrud Koch (Film Studies, Free University Berlin)
Olivier Schefer (Aesthetics, Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris 1)
Alison Stone (Philosophy, Lancaster University)
Hito Steyerl (artist, Berlin)
Peter Weibel (ZKM, Karlsruhe)

Registration is *REQUIRED* via: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=2379.
Please note that the fees for the conference – waged £60.00; students & unwaged £20.00; Covers tea/coffee, the reception and lunch for both days.

Enquiries to: crmep@kingston.ac.uk

Thursday 7 March, 7pm
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1
Price: £7.00 / £5.00 concessions (includes free glass of wine).

Does progress always have to mean expansion? Is culture dependent on increasing space, numbers and activity? The final Salon in the IMCC series on Cultures of Capitalism at the Whitechapel debates our cultural and political obsessions with growth. Speakers include architect, academic and urbanist Sarah Chaplin, Director at Counterculture Partners Stephen Escritt, and critical theorist and Professor at Penn State University Allan Stoekl.

Book your ticket at: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/product/category_id/22/product_id/1538?session_id=13608477991e2790ead5092a4e07ee56485172feaf

Wednesday 6th March, 4pm – 5.15pm
Wells Street, room 106

Allan Stoekl (Penn State University / IMCC)
“Le Corbusier and the Challenge of a Pascalian Technocracy”