.
If utopianism, in the contemporary sense of the word, is an articulation of what Ernst Block has called the “principle of hope”, feminist utopian fictions, which first emerged in the English speaking world in the second half of the nineteenth century, have mirrored, in the ensuing one hundred years, a plethora of different dreams, goals and visions. In the golden age of 19th century feminist utopianism, these ranged from the political and pragmatic to the sociological, centered on civic emancipation and the right to vote and on the reversal of restrictive public roles, while one hundred years later, the most daring “ambiguous utopias” of second wave feminism, assumed the shape of “thought experiments “ that questioned the very concepts of stable constructions of gender.
This presentation will map out the evolution of trends of feminist utopian texts and the narrative juxtapositions of the tropes of argumentation and persuasion with the formats of speculative literature and science fiction.
Tuesday 23 February, 7pm
Teresa Botelho is Associate Professor of American Studies at FCSH, Nova University and a member of the research project “Mapping Dreams: British and American Utopianism” at CETAPS.
~
...past events
Pyropolitics
~
~
+ Parallel events announced by early August.
~
Cannibal City
Gentrification, Real Estate speculation, draconian eviction and anti-squatting laws have profoundly altered the way we live in cities, what we are allowed to do with space and how; prompting the question: whose space is it? Can citizens claim a right to unused buildings and land? Why is property more important than the lives that dwell within it?
From 2007 Adelita Husni-Bey has been producing works that deal with these questions, strategies and methods ranging from workshops to radio shows, publications and archives as practical tools for dissent. Ard (Land) is a film of a workshop held by Cairo activists and the artist to rethink policy and the threat of mega-projects in the city, White Paper: The Law, addresses the current anti-squatting legislation in the Netherlands through writing a functional convention for the ‘use of space’ and the Clays Lane Live Archive upholds the dissident memory of a housing cooperative demolished to make way for the 2012 London Olympics.
In this screening and talk we will be engaged in discussing the methodologies, their effects, successes and failures, as well as re-thinking and integrating how these tools could be useful in the city of Lisbon.
Adelita Husni-Bey is an artist and a researcher whose practice involves the analysis and counter-representation of hegemonic ideologies in contemporary Western societies. Recent projects have also focused on re-thinking radical pedagogical models within the framework of anarco-collectivist studies. Solo shows include: White Paper: The Land, Beirut (in Cairo), 2014, Playing Truant, Gasworks, 2012,The Green Mountain, ViaFarini/DOCVA, 2010. She has participated in Really Useful Knowledge, Reina Sofia museum, 2014, Utopia for Sale?, MAXXI museum, 2014, Jens, Hordeland Kunstsenter, 2013, Meeting Points 7, MuKHa, 2013, 0 Degree Performance, Moscow Biennial 2013, Mental Furniture Industry, Flat time House, 2013, TRACK, S.M.A.K museum, 2012, Right to Refusal, 2012, Bregenz Kunstverein. She has recently completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York and will be presenting chapter II of ‘White Paper’, a project based on the analysis of the changing face of legislation in relationship to private ownership, at Casco (Office for Design Art and Theory), in the spring of 2015.
~
~
Property shapes all social relations
Laurel Ptak in conversation
10 September 7.30pm
Laurel Ptak is a New York City based curator and researcher interested in the social and political contours of art and technology. Her practice is best known for creating discursive platforms that allow for artistic dialogue and critical engagement. Together with artist Marysia Lewandowska, she is co-editor of the book Undoing Property? which explores artistic practices in relationship to immaterial production, political economy and the commons, published by Sternberg Press in 2013.
Using Undoing Property? as a starting point, at The Barber Shop Ptak will discuss a number of projects she's organized over the past few years that question notions of property from radically different vantage points—from alternative economies to cyberfeminism to intellectual property to debt to social media.
Ptak has held diverse roles inside art institutions internationally including Guggenheim Museum (New York City), MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York City), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm), among others. Her curatorial work has been recognized with a nomination for the Independent Vision Award from Independent Curators International, Critical Writing Fellowship at Recess, Research Grant from the Foundation for Arts Initiatives and a Curatorial Fellowship at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center.
Ptak currently teaches in the department of Art, Media and Technology at The New School in New York City. In 2014 she was appointed Director of Triangle Arts Association in Brooklyn, a more than 30-year-old artist residency program within an international network of arts organizations around the world. She is currently at work transforming it into a revitalized institution that actively rethinks the site and conditions of artistic production and wonders what an artist residency can be in the year 2014.
More info:
www.laurelptak.com
~
Floating Bodies
by Adrian Lahoud
'Mutually Assured Survival' and the reserves of future catastrophe
Open events:
Godofredo Pereira is an architect and researcher. He is currently completing his PhD at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London. His research Underground Fetishism investigates territorial conflicts within the planetary race for underground resources, with a particular focus on the parallel exhumations of minerals and political leaders as re-imaginations of the body politik. Together with lawyer Alonso Barros and as part of Forensic Architecture he is coordinating the Atacama Desert Project, a geo-forensic analysis of human rights and environmental violations in the Atacama Desert in Chile. He is also the coordinator of History and Theory at the MArch Urban Design program at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, co-founder and editor of Detritos, a journal of art and critical theory, and editor of the book Savage Objects, INCM, 2012.
Joana Rafael is an architectural practitioner based in London and Porto. Having graduated from the University Institute of Architecture in Venice (UIAV), she has continued her studies through the Metropolis Master Program at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and the MA programme in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, London, where she is currently completing a PhD in Visual Cultures. She has been a recipient of several funding bodies including the Portuguese FCT. Joana is a contributor to San Rocco and other European architectural publications and a Associate and Visiting Lecturer (Critical and Contextual Studies) at Central Saint Martins School of Communication, Product and Spatial Design and Canterbury, University for the Creative Arts. Current research is focused upon an expanded view of systems architecture, its logistical, aesthetical, epistemological and spatial history and applications. She is interested in what ways can we imagine architecture exceeding itself?
What have women dreamt?
One century of feminist utopian fictions revisited
Presentation by Teresa Botelho
Presentation by Teresa Botelho
If utopianism, in the contemporary sense of the word, is an articulation of what Ernst Block has called the “principle of hope”, feminist utopian fictions, which first emerged in the English speaking world in the second half of the nineteenth century, have mirrored, in the ensuing one hundred years, a plethora of different dreams, goals and visions. In the golden age of 19th century feminist utopianism, these ranged from the political and pragmatic to the sociological, centered on civic emancipation and the right to vote and on the reversal of restrictive public roles, while one hundred years later, the most daring “ambiguous utopias” of second wave feminism, assumed the shape of “thought experiments “ that questioned the very concepts of stable constructions of gender.
This presentation will map out the evolution of trends of feminist utopian texts and the narrative juxtapositions of the tropes of argumentation and persuasion with the formats of speculative literature and science fiction.
Tuesday 23 February, 7pm
Casa dos Amigos do Minho - Rua do Benformoso 244, Lisboa
Teresa Botelho is Associate Professor of American Studies at FCSH, Nova University and a member of the research project “Mapping Dreams: British and American Utopianism” at CETAPS.
~
...past events
When the World is Ablaze
presentation by Michael Marder
Tuesday 29 December 6PM
‘From the books and heretics burnt on the pyres of the Inquisition to self-immolations at protest rallies, from the massive burning of oil on the global scale to inflammatory speech, from the imagery of revolutionary sparks ready to ignite the spirits of the oppressed to car bombings in the Middle East, fire proves to be an indispensable element of the political. To account for this elemental source of heat and light, Pyropolitics delineates a semantico-discursive field, replete with the literal and metaphorical mentions and uses of fires, flames, sparks, immolations, incinerations, and burning in political theory and practices.
Relying on classical political theory, literature, theology, contemporary philosophy, and an analysis of current events, Michael Marder argues that geo-politics, or the politics of the Earth, has always had an unstable, at once shadowy and blinding, underside—pyropolitics, or the politics of fire. If this obscure double of geopolitics is, increasingly, dictating the rules of the game today, then it is crucial to learn to speak its language, to discern its manifestations, and to project where our world ablaze is heading.’
You can find the book here.
Michael Marder is IKERBASQUE Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. His most recent monographs include The Philosopher’s Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium (2014), Pyropolitics: When the World Is Ablaze (2015), and Dust (2016). He is now completing a book, co-authored with Luce Irigaray and titled Through Vegetal Being.
~
Irrelevancies - an introduction to Luta ca caba inda
by Filipa César
Friday 30 October 19h at Casa dos Amigos do Minho
This contribution introduces the human, material and economic background of Luta ca caba inda, a collective research project that addresses the possibilities of accessing and performing images and sounds from an eroded Guinean audio visual archive – a collection resulting from the liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism in the 60’s and 70’s and its alliances to international solidarity movements.
The creole title Luta ca caba inda, derives from an unfinished film that is part of this assemblage. This sentence, that translates into English as 'the struggle is not over yet' cursed the accomplishing potency of that film, of the struggle and of this project.
This the first of a series of lectures by Filipa César about her research and practice, to be continued in spring.
Flora Gomes and Julinho Camará shooting Guiné-Bissau, 6 Anos Depois 1980 (unfinished film)
© INCA Guinea Bissau, José Cobumba, Josefina Crato, Flora Gomes and Sana na N’Hada.
Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker interested in the porous relationship between the moving image and its public reception, the fictional aspects of the documentary genre and the politics and poetics inherent to the production of moving images. Between 2008-10, great part of César's experimental films have focused on Portugal’s recent past, questioning mechanisms of history production and proposing spaces for performing subjective knowledge. Since 2011, César has been researching the origins of film in Guinea-Bissau and its related geo-political radiance, developing that research into the project Luta ca caba inda. She is was a participant of the research projects "Living Archive, 2011-13" and "Visionary Archive, 2013-15" organised by the Arsenal Institute, Berlin. Selected Film Festivals include Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2013; Forum Expanded - Berlinale, 2013; IFFR, Rotterdam, 2010 and 2013; Indie Lisboa, 2010; DocLisboa, 2011. Selected exhibitions and screenings include: 8th Istanbul Biennial, 2003; Serralves Museum, Porto, 2005; Tate Modern, London, 2007; SFMOMA, 2009; 29th São Paulo Biennial, 2010; Manifesta 8, Cartagena, 2010, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2011; Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2012; Kunstwerke, Berlin, 2013; Festival Meeting Points 7, 2013-14; NBK, Berlin, 2014; Hordaland Art Center, Bergen, 2014; SAAVY contemporary, 2014; Futura, Prague, 2015; Tensta Konsthall, 2015; Khiasma, 2015.
~
Alien
Talk
A Summer School at The Barber Shop
11 – 17 August 2015
A Summer School at The Barber Shop
11 – 17 August 2015
In
the peak of summer, The Barber Shop invites you to an intensive
programme dedicated to science fiction.
As
postmodernity’s horizon of reflection is replaced by the refracted
cyclopic faith in extreme technologisation, only fictions reign as
concrete realities. In the haunting era of climate change, the
physical world is transformed by the conception of new
psychemocracies. Meanwhile the messianic hope for the nation state is
dissolved, just as the paternalistic guidance over the human project
becomes dystopian.
This
programme will debate the importance of science fiction as a creative
mode of self-reinvention, exploring the overlap between 'pataphysics,
techno-utopianism, and performance.
Reconsidering
the relation between subjects and objects in this scenario, can we
see science fiction’s relevance as a reaction to the contemporary
political climate of widespread austerity, or does it play other
roles? How do humour and atheism intervene in the critique of
Artificial Intelligence? Which ontologies will define the cognitive
sensoriality of the future?
To
explore these issues, The Barber Shop invites researchers, writers
and artists to lead a series of lectures and group debates over a
week period. The programme also includes a sound performance, a film
night, purge exercises and a collective audio walk. The sessions will
take place daily from 11th to 17th
August, as the afternoon heat fades.
With
presentations by:
Gabriel
Abrantes
Teresa
Botelho
Francesca
Daistoiévski
Godofredo
Pereira
Jorge Martins Rosa
Jorge Martins Rosa
João
Seixas
Von
Calhau!
Emily
Wardill
Description
of the lectures:
‘Pataphysics
in the post media era (or how Jarry was an unknown precursor to
Guattari)
by
Godofredo Pereira
This
seminar will discuss Alfred Jarry’s ‘pataphysics together with
Raymond Roussel’s “procédé”, to argue how they constitute a
theory of celibatory machines, thus preceding Guattari’s later
development of the notion of abstract machine. In doing so,
the presentation will push ‘pataphysics beyond its strict literary
and artistic context, framing it instead as a principle to think what
a political practice in a post-media era might be. In this sense the
use of ‘pataphysics will be differentiated from recent explorations
of accelerationism and, more importantly, related to anthropological
theories of cannibalism, fetishism, cargo cult and transculturation.
Considering the necessity to develop an appropriation of the
technosphere as a domain of political singularisation, ‘pataphysics
–as the science of abduction or imaginary solutions- will be seen
as critical to the re-imagination of constituent political processes.
It's
All in your Heads: Technologies of Memory as Representations of the
Cyborg
by Jorge Martins Rosa
by Jorge Martins Rosa
Although
the concept of cyborg, in its critically-oriented form established by
Donna Haraway, cannot be isolated from Shannon's Theory of
Information, the stereotype of its visual representation –
particularly in blockbuster movies -- is still that of a hybrid
between human and machine n which the connection or extension is made
through the «hard» bodily dimension. In this presentation we will
have the opportunity to explore other kinds of connections, purely
mental, that arise from the idea of memory as information, i.e., a
recollection of data that can be uploaded, downloaded, stored, and
retrieved. With a few passing references to the evolution of Science
Fiction as a genre, we will however focus on that very same
blockbuster cinema in order to deconstruct the stereotype in its own
territory.
The
Universe is God Enough
by
João Seixas
Hard
Science Fiction writer Hal Clement once said that his stories didn’t
need villains, for the Universe was villain enough. Indeed, from Tom
Godwin’s seminal short-story “The Cold Equations” to the modern
Gothic Space Operas by Alastair Reynolds or Peter F. Hamilton, the
Universe has been inimical to Man’s aspirations, dreams and
desires. And, moreover, Science Fiction’s Universe has been,
mainly, a godless place. But also a place where Humanity transcends
itself, through Science. Science Fiction’s critical stance towards
god and religion, and strong defence of scientific thinking, has long
anticipated the post-9/11 “new atheism” of thinkers like Daniel
Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or the late lamented Christopher
Hitchens. The aim of this presentation is to show - with the help of
some relevant texts from SF’s canon and the latest developments on
Cosmology - how Science Fiction, as the perfect bridge between
popular entertainment, scientific knowledge and technical
development, can be used to probe the boundaries of our conception
of being human in a Universe where god has no more gaps to hide in.
Indigenous
Potty Humor and Sarcastic AI - The social function of
joking relationships from the stateless societies of the Amazon river
Basin to the artificial intelligence in sci-fi
by
Gabriel Abrantes
I
want to talk about 'Joking Relationships' in stateless indigenous
communities of the Amazon. I will discuss a variety of recorded
Joking Relationships in various indigenous groups and how this
institutionalised form of transgression functions as a conflict
diffuser. Following this I want to ask the question of weather we can
consider the humorous robots that have populated popular sci-fi, such
as the sarcastic AI in 'Interstellar', C3PO in Star Wars, and Ultron
in the Avengers II 'Age of Ultron' to have a 'joking relationship'
with the human characters. Can we imagine AI to be funny, can they
understand humour, can we get a machine to laugh?
Dark
Windows and Brittle Circumferences
by
Emily Wardill
A
visual lecture looking at the images that make us feel afraid by
being there and by being indifferent. Focussing on psychological
horrors and thrillers to think about what leaves us hanging - how
much fear can be encapsulated in an image and how much can be done
with thwarted expectations.
Transcending
the Body: Techno-utopianism in the Twenty-first Century
by
Teresa Botelho
In
the nineteenth and early twentieth century the technological
imaginary shaped a vast corpus of literary utopian visions of a
better world, equating progress with practical achievements brought
about by advancing efficiency in production and in communication and
transportation systems thought to establish new conditions that would
improve humanity’s choices, freeing citizens not only from poverty,
hard and repetitive labor, but also from major sources of individual
and collective unhappiness. This session will discuss how, in
contrast, techno-utopias of the twenty first century shadowed by
Singularity Theory, which has been described as the quintessential
myth of contemporary techno culture, have significantly shifted
attention to the body, proposing trans-human and post-human futures
marked by the transcendence of the organic–machine divide. It will
focus on literary and visual articulations of these themes that
scrutinize the construction of selfhood of both technologically
mediated humans and non-human sentient entities.
+
audio walk by Francesca
Daistoiévski
It
is in the in endless fissures of liminal spaces, where the most
recondite weaving among perception, imagination and reality, are
hidden. Fiction-no-fiction
spoken sound walk for exiting the city.
+
purge exercise and musical performance by Von
Calhau!
Rapid
non workshop - Translation of dual vocalizations into electric
movements of expansion and contraction translated into acoustic
elements of dual vocalizations - Tauto-rombudage.
+ Parallel events announced by early August.
~
Keywords
Science
Fiction, 'Pataphysics, Espionage, Atheism, Humour, Performance,
Horror, Techno-utopianism, Artificial Intelligence
Location
The Barber Shop (Casa dos
Amigos do Minho, Rua do Bemformoso 244, Lisboa.)
Material
for application
portfolio
+ statement of interest / description of research focus (half page)
+ CV.
All
applications should be sent by email to:
thebarbershop.lisbon@gmail.com
Deadline:
21st June
Invited
applicants will be announced before the end of June by email
Biographies
of guest speakers:
Gabriel
Abrantes
lives and Works in Lisbon. He studied at The Cooper Union for the
Advancement of Science and Art , at L’Ecole National des Beaux-Arts
(Paris) and at Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains. He
has directed 18 short films over the past 8 years, often setting his
provocative narratives in diverse contexts such as Sri Lanka, Haiti,
Angola, Brazil, Argentina, France and Portugal. The films have
premiered at festivals such as Locarno Film Festival, La Bienale di
Venezia, the Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival as well
as in museums such as MIT List Center in Boston, Palais de Tokyo and
MAMVP in Paris, or Serralves in Porto. His films have been awarded a
number of prizes such as A History of Mutual Respect (co-directed
with Daniel Schmidt) which as awarded the Golden Pardi for best short
film at Locarno 2010 or Taprobana which was awarded the EFA short
film nomination at the 2014 Berlinale.
Teresa
Botelho holds a Ph.D, from
Cambridge University and is Associate Professor of American Studies
at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University
of Lisbon. She is a member of the Mapping Dreams: British and
American Utopian Thought research project at CETAPS. Her research
interests focus on theories of identity and performativity related
to artistic and literary American expressions, on utopian and
dystopian narratives,, alternate history, science fiction and
Afrofuturism.
Francesca
Daistoiévski is
formally a quasi academic interested in the intertwined reality of
spatial and social practice with cyberspace. Informally she’s an
explorer and a disoriented social agent.
Godofredo
Pereira is an architect and researcher. He holds a PhD from the
Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London and
an M.Arch from the Bartlett School of Architecture. He is the
coordinator of History and Theory at the M.Arch Urban Design program
at the Bartlett, where he also leads the Axiomatic Earth design
studio. His research “The Underground Frontier” investigates
political and territorial conflicts within the planetary race for
underground resources. He is the editor of the book Savage Objects
and his essays have been published internationally in Cabinet (US),
Open Democracy (UK), Lugar Comum (BR), ArqA (PT) or Oris (CK).
Jorge
Martins Rosa
is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Sciences Department in
FCSH-NOVA, where he teaches, among other courses, «Fictional Modes»,
«Cyberculture», and «Pop Culture». In his PhD, he aimed at
establishing connections between the science fiction of Philip K.
Dick and the discursive rhetoric of contemporary cyberculture. He was
Principal Investigator of the project «Fiction and the Roots of
Cyberculture».
João
Seixas practices law
since 1997, and is a published science fiction and horror writer.
From 2004, until it ceased publication in 2012, he was the main
reviewer for Science Fiction and Horror Literature in Os
Meus Livros
literary magazine. In 2005 he was a co-founder of the small press
Livros de Areia, where he was the editor and publisher of selected
authors ranging from Jerzy Kosinski to Jeff VanderMeer and Blanca
Riestra to Elise Blackwell. João Seixas worked as a free-lance
translator for the two most prominent publishers in Portugal,
translating, among others, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Richard Morgan, Nick
Sagan, Tim Powers and Dan Simmons. He has published articles and
essays on SF, Horror and Fantasy in several publications, ranging
from literary magazines Ler
and Bang!,
to daily newspaper Público
as well as in specialized publications such as Paradoxo
or Megalon.
Von
Calhau!
Work as a duo since
2006, under
the name that conceals all artwork developed in communion by Marta
Ângela and João Artur. Von Calhau!
works
in the interzone meeting of imperative rhythms and choreographed
fluxus. Selected editions: Quadrologia Pentacónica (Rafflesia,
2011); NN (Serralves Foundation, 2011); Magnet Bright Shadow Driver
(Author Edition, 2013); Abyss Vulture (The Mouse of Europe, 2013);
The Court of Urubu ( Circular, 2014).
Emily
Wardill
has had solo exhibitions at The National Gallery of Denmark,
Copenhagen (2012); The Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2012); de
Appel arts centre, Amsterdam (2012); The Contemporary Art Museum St
Louis (2011) and ICA, London (2007–08). She participated in the
54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the 19thSydney
Bienalle (2014) and in group exhibitions at Hayward Gallery, London;
Witte de With, Rotterdam; MUMOK Vienna; and MOCA, Miami. In 2010,
Wardill was the recipient of the Jarman Award and in 2011 The
Leverhulme Award. Her work is in international collections from Tate
Britain to Mumok, Vienna. She is represented by Carlier Gebauer
(Berlin), STANDARD(OSLO) and Altman Siegal (San Francisco). She works
part time as a professor at Malmo Art Academy.
~
Cannibal City
Screening and talk by Adelita Husni-Bey
Thursday 14 May 19h at Casa dos Amigos do Minho
Gentrification, Real Estate speculation, draconian eviction and anti-squatting laws have profoundly altered the way we live in cities, what we are allowed to do with space and how; prompting the question: whose space is it? Can citizens claim a right to unused buildings and land? Why is property more important than the lives that dwell within it?
From 2007 Adelita Husni-Bey has been producing works that deal with these questions, strategies and methods ranging from workshops to radio shows, publications and archives as practical tools for dissent. Ard (Land) is a film of a workshop held by Cairo activists and the artist to rethink policy and the threat of mega-projects in the city, White Paper: The Law, addresses the current anti-squatting legislation in the Netherlands through writing a functional convention for the ‘use of space’ and the Clays Lane Live Archive upholds the dissident memory of a housing cooperative demolished to make way for the 2012 London Olympics.
In this screening and talk we will be engaged in discussing the methodologies, their effects, successes and failures, as well as re-thinking and integrating how these tools could be useful in the city of Lisbon.
_
Adelita Husni-Bey is an artist and a researcher whose practice involves the analysis and counter-representation of hegemonic ideologies in contemporary Western societies. Recent projects have also focused on re-thinking radical pedagogical models within the framework of anarco-collectivist studies. Solo shows include: White Paper: The Land, Beirut (in Cairo), 2014, Playing Truant, Gasworks, 2012,The Green Mountain, ViaFarini/DOCVA, 2010. She has participated in Really Useful Knowledge, Reina Sofia museum, 2014, Utopia for Sale?, MAXXI museum, 2014, Jens, Hordeland Kunstsenter, 2013, Meeting Points 7, MuKHa, 2013, 0 Degree Performance, Moscow Biennial 2013, Mental Furniture Industry, Flat time House, 2013, TRACK, S.M.A.K museum, 2012, Right to Refusal, 2012, Bregenz Kunstverein. She has recently completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York and will be presenting chapter II of ‘White Paper’, a project based on the analysis of the changing face of legislation in relationship to private ownership, at Casco (Office for Design Art and Theory), in the spring of 2015.
Address:
Casa dos Amigos do Minho
Rua Benformoso 244, 1ºandar, Lisboa
This event is part of the RES project "Residences for young curators and programmers" organised by the Foundation Adolfo Pini, in tutorship with Peep-Hole and hosted the FDV Residency. RES "residences for young curators and programmers" is a project created and supported by the Foundation Adolfo Pini promoting new international collaborations with the city of Milan.
~
Man Hat Bridge
Saturday 22 November 5pm
David Bernstein (1988, San Antonio, Texas) is an artist based in Amsterdam. He combines performance, sculpture, and writing to tell stories through objects. He has presented his work internationally at Walden Affairs, The Hague (2014); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2013 & 2014); Performa 13, NY (2013); CAC, Vilnius (2013); Frutta, Rome (2013); De Appel, Amsterdam (2013); and SculptureCenter, NY (2012).
Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson (1984, Reykjavík, Iceland) is also an artist based in Amsterdam. He combines performance, sculpture, and writing to tell stories through objects. He has presented his work internationally at The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik (2014); Cultura Surplus, Mexico City (2014); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2014); CAC, Vilnius (2013); Oo Lithuanian / Cypriot Pavilion, Venice Biennial (2013); Boekie Woekie, Amsterdam (2013); and Crikoteka, Krakow (2012).
This performance will be followed by a celebration hosted at Parkour project space, bring drinks and join us for Total Eclipse ☯
this event has the kind support of:
~
Property shapes all social relations
Laurel Ptak in conversation
10 September 7.30pm
Laurel Ptak is a New York City based curator and researcher interested in the social and political contours of art and technology. Her practice is best known for creating discursive platforms that allow for artistic dialogue and critical engagement. Together with artist Marysia Lewandowska, she is co-editor of the book Undoing Property? which explores artistic practices in relationship to immaterial production, political economy and the commons, published by Sternberg Press in 2013.
Using Undoing Property? as a starting point, at The Barber Shop Ptak will discuss a number of projects she's organized over the past few years that question notions of property from radically different vantage points—from alternative economies to cyberfeminism to intellectual property to debt to social media.
Ptak has held diverse roles inside art institutions internationally including Guggenheim Museum (New York City), MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York City), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm), among others. Her curatorial work has been recognized with a nomination for the Independent Vision Award from Independent Curators International, Critical Writing Fellowship at Recess, Research Grant from the Foundation for Arts Initiatives and a Curatorial Fellowship at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center.
Ptak currently teaches in the department of Art, Media and Technology at The New School in New York City. In 2014 she was appointed Director of Triangle Arts Association in Brooklyn, a more than 30-year-old artist residency program within an international network of arts organizations around the world. She is currently at work transforming it into a revitalized institution that actively rethinks the site and conditions of artistic production and wonders what an artist residency can be in the year 2014.
More info:
www.laurelptak.com
~
But
does it float?
A
summer school at
The Barber Shop
28th
July – 1stAugust
2014
In
the peak of summer,
The
Barber Shop invites you to an intensive programme dedicated to the
investigation of geophilosophy and processes of mattering.
By
inquiring into how matter functions as a time capsule or a black box,
this programme reflects on our comprehension of geological and
planetary frontiers as tools for communal decision-making. While
necessarily probing the processes of deterritorialisation and
subsequent virtualisation that structure our surroundings, this
investigation encompasses also the impact of inhuman
forces and nonorganic life in the game at play.
How
do we include invisible cartographies and virtual matter in the
day-to-day human action? Can we recognize the dimension of deep time
as intrinsic to the development of matter, and furthermore of our own
cultural actuality? How do we position ourselves within this
Anthropocenic moment?
To
explore these issues, The Barber Shop invites researchers, writers
and artists to lead a series of lectures and group debates over a
week period The programme also includes a sound performance, a film
night and a collective walk. The sessions will take place daily from
28th
July to 1st
August, as the afternoon heat fades.
Guest
speakers
Adrian
Lahoud
Godofredo
Pereira
Ben
Woodard
Jonathan
Saldanha
Joana
Rafael
Paulo
Crawford
Description
of the lectures:
Ungrounded
Life: Natural Complicity and the Conditions of Movement
by
Ben
Woodard
Examining
the depth of the material contingencies between the inorganic and
organic registers of the Earth has become commonplace whether in
vitalism, New Materialisms, or Media Archeology. The ramifications of
such a complicity however, are often made safe for humans whether via
an abstract sense of life, affect, or a generic humanist sense of
materialism. I wish to argue that such safety can only ever be
methodological, that there can be no ultimate separation of ourselves
from the grounding forces of the Earth. Through the work of FWJ von
Schelling I will argue that an unbound notion of nature allows for a
more rigorous articulation of an inhumanism than the strategies
mentioned above. This seminar will examine how the geological and the
biological (as articulated by Schelling) leads to a naturalistic
inhumanism that is a consequence of, and not an exception to, the
naturalness of human beings and human thoughts. B.W.
Underground
Fetishism
by
Godofredo
Pereira
This
lecture is an investigation into
the underground as a planetary frontier. Focusing a series of
resource intensive territories - from the Niger Delta in Nigeria, to
the Orinoco Oil Belt in Venezuela and the Atacama Desert in Chile -
as paradigmatic cases of an attraction for the underground, the
lecture will trace a series of exhumations (from symbolic political
leaders and victims of genocide, to geological strata and mineral
riches) to unground entangled histories of human rights violations,
environmental destruction and resource extraction that result from
the quest for El Dorado. Foregrounding the fetishistic relation
between objects and the territories of which they are evidence,
manifest in the contemporary emergence of geoforensic practices, this
lecture will show how exhumations have become increasingly central to
the constitution of new territorial imaginations. G.P.
Floating Bodies
by Adrian Lahoud
In
recent decades two major shifts have transformed our understanding of
the Earth in relation to the irreversible impact of seven billion
human beings. Firstly, we can now look up through the sky and make
out the structure of our shared atmosphere, or look down through the
ground, making visible the Earth’s geologic architectures.
Secondly, the barriers of past and present begin being breached, as
computational simulations are able to reveal our geo-climatic
futures. These two shifts constitute a revolution that is both
political and aesthetic, as in revealing the Earth’s invisible
geometries they link economic activity in one part of the world, to
conflicts and devastation in another. However, they do so in ways
that reveal how existing legal, political and philosophical resources
are ill equipped, as they are built on histories of human experiences
that are proximate in time and in space.
This
presentation will depart from a case study that links aerosol
emission in the Northern Hemisphere to drought and desertification in
Africa’s Sahel. The argument will suggest that if this case can be
seen as a kind of paradigm for new forms of environmental violence –
then forums for negotiating climate change might be considered crime
scenes.
'Mutually Assured Survival' and the reserves of future catastrophe
by
Joana Rafael
This talk will examine reserve realities of the nuclear and their proliferation in an ever more extensive network, that envelops other activities and extends towards a permanent, unified and world-scale techno-sphere. These nuclear reserves will be explored in relation to an eschatological economy of salvation that governs attempts to predict, contain and even eradicate the risk of a catastrophic crisis, and the great socio-political, technocratic and cultural frameworks built around this. A specific focus will fall on how their architecture is developed in relation to the governance of risk, being defined by constraints that aim to manage the future and fix natural and historical time, drawing a horizon line that encloses and protects spatial and temporal integrity in order to prevent any contamination that threatens it. The talk will examine how these architectural measures attempt to construct a temetos, an autonomous world, set apart and held in forced stasis. J.R.
This talk will examine reserve realities of the nuclear and their proliferation in an ever more extensive network, that envelops other activities and extends towards a permanent, unified and world-scale techno-sphere. These nuclear reserves will be explored in relation to an eschatological economy of salvation that governs attempts to predict, contain and even eradicate the risk of a catastrophic crisis, and the great socio-political, technocratic and cultural frameworks built around this. A specific focus will fall on how their architecture is developed in relation to the governance of risk, being defined by constraints that aim to manage the future and fix natural and historical time, drawing a horizon line that encloses and protects spatial and temporal integrity in order to prevent any contamination that threatens it. The talk will examine how these architectural measures attempt to construct a temetos, an autonomous world, set apart and held in forced stasis. J.R.
Vibrational
Mediations
by
Jonathan
Saldanha
Presentation
and listening session taking on some aspects from Jonathan Saldanha's
work, navigating into the realms of resonant choir constructions,
visceral mediation of space, black matter and intra-cranial Dub. The
conversation will be followed by a listening session operated in a
live dub situation were the different pieces are put together to
invoke the sonic membranes that connect them. J.S.
Past
and Future of the Universe: the presence of dark matter and the role
of dark energy in the expansion of the universe
by
Paulo
Crawford
If
general relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravity, is correct, most
of the universe is dark. Almost a third of the universe seems to be
made of dark matter, some sort of heavy invisible stuff that swarms
around galaxies, whose observational evidence is overwhelming. The
other two-thirds is in the form of an ethereal ingredient, dark
energy, which is repulsive in a way that accelerates the present
expansion of the universe. Only about 4 percent of the stuff of the
universe is made of the familiar atoms. Should we conclude that we
are reaching the limits of general relativity and Einstein’s theory
is beginning to fail? How all this could affect our notions time and
space? P.C.
Keywords
deep time, processes of mattering, climatology, territorial fiction, opaque topologies, geophilosophy, sonic resonance, dark matter.
Location The Barber Shop Rua Araujo 5, Lisboa.
~
Open events:
Wednesday 30th
film night at Galeria Zé dois Bois (Rua da Barroca 59) 10pm
Medium Earth by The Otolith Group
'The accumulation of moving images and sounds that make up Medium Earth comprise an audiovisual essay on the millennial time of geology and the infrastructural unconscious of Southern California. Focused on the ways in which tectonic forces express themselves in boulder outcrops and the hairline fractures of cast concrete, Medium Earth participates in the cultures of prophecy and forecasting that mediate the experience of seismic upheaval. The desire to evoke the hidden substrata of the planet gives way to a morphological interpretation of the face of the earth. As an experiment in channeling the system of fault lines buried below California, Medium Earth animates the stresses and strains of physical geographies undergoing continental pressures.'
The Life of Particles by Angela Melitopoulos, Maurizio Lazzarato
The Life of Particles is the second part of a visual research project by Angela Melitopoulos and Maurizio Lazzarato about the French psychotherapist, political activist, and philosopher Félix Guattari and his interest in Japan.
The Life of Particles enters into a dialogue with contemporary Japan and the relationship between subjectivity, animist spirituality, and modern technology in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Fukushima compels Japan to look back on its history that melds animist traditions with hyper-modernity.
The Life of Particles is a journey that begins in Okinawa with the actual form of colonization through the massive presence of the US military since WWII. The travelogue re-itinerates the “Atoms for Peace” campaign in Hiroshima and the reconstruction of Japan as a country built on science within the ideology of the so-called “energy millennarianism” as a nuclear dream project during the Cold War. The research ends in Tokyo and Kyoto with insights by the photographer and anthropologist Chihiro Minato and the Bhutto dancer Min Tanaka into the history of technology in Japan and the animist traditions that are central to the development of Japanese craft and the resulting relationship between nature and culture.
The Life of Particles enters into a dialogue with contemporary Japan and the relationship between subjectivity, animist spirituality, and modern technology in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Fukushima compels Japan to look back on its history that melds animist traditions with hyper-modernity.
The Life of Particles is a journey that begins in Okinawa with the actual form of colonization through the massive presence of the US military since WWII. The travelogue re-itinerates the “Atoms for Peace” campaign in Hiroshima and the reconstruction of Japan as a country built on science within the ideology of the so-called “energy millennarianism” as a nuclear dream project during the Cold War. The research ends in Tokyo and Kyoto with insights by the photographer and anthropologist Chihiro Minato and the Bhutto dancer Min Tanaka into the history of technology in Japan and the animist traditions that are central to the development of Japanese craft and the resulting relationship between nature and culture.
Running time 123minutes + Drinks at the terrace
Friday 1st
Listening session by Jonathan Saldanha (Avenida da Liberdade 211) 7.30pm
Jonathan Saldanha's work navigates into the realms of resonant choir constructions, visceral mediation of space, black matter and intra-cranial Dub. This listening session, parallel to the artist's presentation at the summer school, will be operated from a live dub situation were different pieces will be put together to invoke the sonic membranes that connect them.
Biographies
of guest speakers:
Adrian
Lahoud
is
an architect and teacher working on concepts of scale and their
architectural, urban, and geopolitical consequences. Currently he is
leading the M.Arch Urban Design at The Bartlett, University College
London and an external advisor at Projective Cities at the
Architectural Association, London. He joined the Centre for Research
Architecture, Goldsmiths in 2011 as director of the MA programme and
research fellow on the Forensic Architecture ERC project. Prior to
this he was Director of the Urban Design Masters at the University of
Technology Sydney.
Godofredo Pereira is an architect and researcher. He is currently completing his PhD at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London. His research Underground Fetishism investigates territorial conflicts within the planetary race for underground resources, with a particular focus on the parallel exhumations of minerals and political leaders as re-imaginations of the body politik. Together with lawyer Alonso Barros and as part of Forensic Architecture he is coordinating the Atacama Desert Project, a geo-forensic analysis of human rights and environmental violations in the Atacama Desert in Chile. He is also the coordinator of History and Theory at the MArch Urban Design program at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, co-founder and editor of Detritos, a journal of art and critical theory, and editor of the book Savage Objects, INCM, 2012.
Ben
Woodard
is a PhD student at the Centre for Theory and Criticism at Western
University. His work focuses on the philosophy of FWJ von Schelling,
naturalism, pragmatism, and contemporary continental philosophy. He
has published two monographs: Slime Dynamics with Zer0 Books and On
an Ungrounded Earth: Towards a New Geophilosophy with Punctum. He
also writes on horror film, weird fiction, and philosophies of
pessimism.
Joana Rafael is an architectural practitioner based in London and Porto. Having graduated from the University Institute of Architecture in Venice (UIAV), she has continued her studies through the Metropolis Master Program at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and the MA programme in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, London, where she is currently completing a PhD in Visual Cultures. She has been a recipient of several funding bodies including the Portuguese FCT. Joana is a contributor to San Rocco and other European architectural publications and a Associate and Visiting Lecturer (Critical and Contextual Studies) at Central Saint Martins School of Communication, Product and Spatial Design and Canterbury, University for the Creative Arts. Current research is focused upon an expanded view of systems architecture, its logistical, aesthetical, epistemological and spatial history and applications. She is interested in what ways can we imagine architecture exceeding itself?
Jonathan
Uliel Saldanha is
a producer and composer, concerned with the relations of sound with
its resonance, negative territories, echo and recursivity,
pre-language, visceral voice, subsonic frequencies and
intra-cranial-dub. Saldanha operates sonically in the projects HHY &
The Macumbas, Fujako, Mécanosphère and Beast Box among others.
Founding member of SOOPA, a proteiform, multicephalous, sound &
visual laboratory with headquarters in Porto, Portugal. In 2012 he
co-curated the program "SONORES - sound/space/signal" for
Guimarães European Capital of Culture and composed the piece KHŌROS
ANIMA for mixed choir and empty resonant space. In 2014 Saldanha
presented SANCTA VISCERA TUA, a sonic and scenic piece constructed
from the archetypes present in the structure of a Via Sacra, a
vibrational action of sound, gesture, light and voice. His music has
been released under the labels SOOPA, Ångström Records, Wordsound,
Rotorelief, SILO and Tzadik
Paulo
Crawford is
a retired professor of physics at the Universidade de Lisboa (UL) and
a researcher at the Centro de Astronomia e Astrofísica of UL. Tapada
da Ajuda, Edifício Leste. He
studied Graviation at
King’s College University in London with Prof. John Taylor, and
completed the first PhD within this field by Lisbon University in
1987. Successively he created a research center for Gravitation and
Cosmology, which has been active since the late 80s, first in the
Nuclear Physics Center of Lisbon, and from 2000 in the Astronomy and
Astrophysics Center.
