herbst Academy workshop call
Deadline for registration: Wednesday 31 July 2014
steirischer herbst 2014
Graz
Austria
academy [at] steirischerherbst.at
Workshop 1
Researching the Militant Image
9–10 October
By Urban Subjects (AT/CA) (Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, Helmut Weber) & guests
How can we conceive the role of images as a moment of participation in forms of militancy today? Mass media and art are filled with images of protest and revolt. But an image of militancy is not necessarily a militant image. Just as militancy itself constitutes a social relationship that must be shared continually in order to be unleashed, so must militant images also emotionally short-circuit representation and politics, community and action. The Canadian-Austrian research collective Urban Subjects is co-curator of the Camera Austria exhibition The Militant Image. The workshop discusses artistic contributions, texts, films and also their discursive foundations. The debate involving further guests will address the ramified tracks of militant research, postcolonial film production and current debates about poor images and migrant images.
Workshop 2
Life and Times, Episodes 9 &10. Come and Dance!
8–10 October
By Nature Theater of Oklahoma (US)
Nature Theater of Oklahoma have been working on their large-scale “Life and Times” project for seven years now. Taking recorded telephone conversations as a starting-point, the life of Kristin Worrall, herself a member of the New York group, was staged in such diverse styles as musical, thriller and organ concert. Following the presentation of “Life and Times – Episodes 4.5 – 5 – 6″ at the festival, the final episodes of the so far 14-hour long project will now be created—shot as a music video in Graz. It’s about love, odd jobs and whatever else goes on at the age of 30. “Come and Dance!” is a workshop in the truest sense of the word: it will be work and production—life time, sweat and thoughts shared in the course of creative practice.
Workshop 3
Utopian Communities. Refusal, Participation and Anarchistic Practice
13–14 October
By Francis Cape (US)
The world is presented to us as though individualism and materialism were the only possible orientation systems and representative democracy the only possible way of organising a state politically. And yet there are communities that refuse to participate in these systems and choose instead to practise comprehensive forms of sharing and participation in self-determined collectives. In his “Utopian Benches” project presented at the steirischer herbst exhibition Forms of Distancing, Francis Cape has closely examined these kinds of communities and their history in Europe and America. Taking a look at religious movements of the 18th century, the anthropologist and activist David Graeber, Zapotec villages, as well as voluntary fire brigades, this workshop investigates those collectives which define themselves as communities of goods and how we can realise anarchistic and communist practices within daily life.
Workshop 4 Participation, Sharing, Being Shared: Codes and Scripts of the Ambivalent
13–14 October
By Alexander Tuchaček (AT/CH)
Promises of self-empowerment and participation are integral to digital media. It is not only since Edward Snowden’s disclosures that sharing has presented itself as something ambivalent: social networks have created the potential for democratic public opinion and at the same time greater surveillance. This space between sharing and being shared, in which the private is only generated through the public, is the focus of the workshop. Alexander Tuchaček, co-founder of media group Knowbotic Research, proposes a media communication structure in which decentralised forms of participation and withdrawal are tried out. In terms of discourse and performance, it is all or nothing: who shares with whom? Who decides the rules about how, when and what is shared? Are there scripts for the uncoded? Can sharing lead to involvement or participation? Who writes the guidelines?
Conference
Academy of Asociality
Today everything is about sharing. I don’t like
11–12 October
Curated by Christiane Kühl
With Inke Arns, Francis Cape, Kelly Copper & Pavol Liska, Sean Cubitt, Christoph Engemann, Harun Farocki, Leo Kühberger, Alice Lagaay, Nina Möntmann, Elisabeth Scharang, Laura Kalauz & Martin Schick, Alexander Tuchaček, Urban Subjects, Harald Welzer et.al.
