as part of ‘The State of Things’ in the 54th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
Thursday, 30 June / 17:30
Aula Tafuri, Palazzo Badoer, Università Iuav di Venezia, Calle della Lacca, San Polo 2468, Venice
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), as commissioner of Norway’s representation at the 54th Biennale di Venezia, would like to announce ‘Forensic Aesthetics’, a lecture by Eyal Weizman within the lecture series ‘The State of Things’.
About ‘Forensic Aesthetics’
The last decades of the twentieth century, often referred to as ‘the era of the witness’, were saturated with representation of testimonies of trauma—written, recorded, filmed archived and exhibited. This primacy of trauma as a site of history also leads to a depoliticised ‘politics of compassion’ apparent in the forums of transitional justice, truth commissions, human rights and humanitarianism. However, a recent shift of emphasis from human testimony to material forensics means that science has begun invading some of the legal and cultural grounds previously reserved for the speech of humans. Potentially, therefore, at its most extreme, new ways of using forensic science have blurred a previously held distinction: between evidence, when the law speaks of objects, and that of the witness, referring to subjects. Such shift has aesthetic, political and ethical implications, dangers and potentials that will be unpacked in this lecture.
About Eyal Weizman
Eyal Weizman (b.1970, Haifa, Israel, lives and works in London, UK) is an architect and the Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Since 2007 he is a member of the architectural collective ‘decolonizing architecture’ in Beit Sahour/Palestine, and since 2008 of B’Tselem board of directors. Weizman has taught, lectured, curated and organised conferences in many institutions worldwide. His books include Il male minore (2009), Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (2007), A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Occupation (2003), and the series Territories 1, 2 and 3. He is a regular contributor and an editorial board member for several journals and magazines including Humanity, Cabinet and Inflexions.
About ‘The State of Things’
‘The State of Things’ is a series of public lectures that will be held throughout the biennale period, reflecting upon themes such as diversity, the environment, peace-making, human rights, capital, migration, asylum, Europe, aesthetics and revolution. Each presentation aims to tackle the ‘state of things’ today, drawing from the speakers’ fields of activity and research, and from what they consider the intellectual and political priorities of today. The programme takes its cue from the Nansen Passport, created by Norwegian diplomat and explorer Fridtjof Nansen at the end of World War I in an attempt to enable refugees move across borders in search of political and intellectual shelter.
Norway’s representation in Venice in 2011 is commissioned by OCA and organised by its director, Marta Kuzma and its associate curator, Pablo Lafuente, together with Peter Osborne, director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London. Norway’s representation at the 54th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, also includes ‘Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS’, a graduate programme by Bjarne Melgaard at the Faculty of Design and Arts, Università Iuav di Venezia.
‘The State of Things’ has been generously supported by Fritt Ord.
For more information on the project, visit the OCA website or contact Marthe Tveitan [[email protected]].
