[Nettime-nl] Conference-festval at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie: Where Are We Going, Walt Whitman?

[Studium Generale Mailbox <StudiumGenerale@grac.nl>]

Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam
Where Are We Going, Walt Whitman?

An ecosophical roadmap for artists and other futurists

Conference – festival
12–15 March 2013

wherearewegoingwaltwhitman.rietveldacademie.nl
www.rietveldacademie.nl
By exploring the potentialities of ecological worldviews, old and new,  
through theory and art, WAWGWW seeks to accelerate, accumulate,  
animate and activate our poetical and political understanding of the  
world. To this aim Gabriëlle Schleijpen, head of Studium Generale  
Rietveld Academie invited Anselm Franke, Binna Choi, Carolyn Christov- 
Bakargiev as well as Natasha Ginwala& Vivian Ziherl to each inaugurate  
a discursive and performative program of one day. In their  
scintillating company plus that of the artists, poets, writers,  
thinkers, activists and musicians they've teamed up with, the Gerrit  
Rietveld Academie will embark on an energetic four-day-long voyage. If  
around in Amsterdam you are most welcome to join us for a wealth of  
lectures, conversations, screenings, discussions, performances,  
masterclasses, displays and more.

Tuesday March 12:
Blue Marble
The image of planet earth has become an icon of the last utopias of  
the 20th century: of living in ecological harmony with nature, and of  
the creation of a borderless world.It transmits visions of one-ness,  
of wholeness,of a united world, and it popularized both ecological and  
systems thinking and appeared to support the idea of a post-nation  
state, globalized and networked society. What does the image of planet  
earth "want" ?

Focussing on the countercultural movements of California in the '60s  
and '70s, Pop theorist Diedrich Diederichsen will speak about concepts  
of wholeness and changing symptoms of the new "planetary  
consciousness." Curator Anselm Franke will discuss the Whole Earth  
Catalog, and the relation between "animism" and "cybernetic ecology."  
Philosopher Erich Hörl will introduce the origins of the contemporary  
ecological paradigm. Armin Linke will present from work on political  
and scientific institutions engaged with global planning. The Otolith  
Group will present from an ongoing research into the spiritual- and  
self-help industry of California, Angela Melitopoulos will speak about  
the relation between geography and psychiatry. Flora Lysen will share  
from her research into the brain sciences at the intersection of  
psychedelia and ecology.

Wednesday March 13:
Japan Syndrome – Amsterdam Version
with Ei Awakara, Binna Choi, Bracha Ettinger, Hope Step Japan, Sabu  
Kohso, Laka Foundation, The Otolith Group, Stefan Tcherepnin & Hanna  
Törnudd with Green Tea Gallery, Miya Yoshida.

The term "China Syndrome" was used in the 1970s to refer to a  
hypothetical nuclear meltdown in the US that would burn all the way  
through the earth and reach the other side: China. Today this  
erroneous hypothesis lives on in the other direction. "On the other  
side" Post-Fukushima Japan calls for a new kind of earthly imaginary  
and a field of discourse beyond language of fear and humanitarian  
appeal. "Japan Syndrome – Amsterdam Version" brings together  
performative, anarcho-urbanist, feminist psychoanalytic, cinematic,  
sci-fi, self-organising, archival and electro musical perspectives  
into the disasters that can no longer be categorized as either  
"natural" or "man-made." Meshing discursive moments with mourning  
rituals and visions of possible futures, it attempts to open up a new  
imaginary landscape of the commons.

Thursday March 14:
Landings: Extracted Bodies and Self-Cartographies
What if landforms are addressed as acculturated bodies, poetic  
substance, temporal agents and cartographic narratives?

Curators Natasha Ginwala and Vivian Ziherl draw upon Land as a  
narrative subject of history.
Anthropologist Rosalind Morris surveys undergrounds and proletarian  
formations in South African gold mining histories (a collaboration  
with William Kentridge).Etel Adnan will read poetry and converse on  
landscapes as memory compositions weaving color, seasons and political  
endurance. Paul Chaney will examine coal as a politically charged  
material through his research into two 19th-century mining towns.  
Erick Beltrán will give a lecture-demonstration on his "Map of maps."  
Angela Melitopoulos will discuss her recent film Two Maps (in  
collaboration with Maurizio Lazzarato), looking into post-Fukushima  
Japan, animist traditions and Guattari's trip to Okinawa. An  
interactive performance lecture jukebox by Olof Olsson offers  
everything from the history of science (the invention of the modern  
combustion engine) to Olsson's biography.

Friday March 15:
Poiesis of Worlding
with Ayreen Anastas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Vinciane Despret,  
Rene Gabri, Fernando García-Dory, Marcos Lutyens

On the 15th of March a ship will be sailing along the lines of some  
thoughts [....]
Meanwhile everybody congratulating everyone on something happening  
possibly close possibly far.[....]

Are animals poets? Of course, they are.
[....]

This perspective towards a de-anthropocentrization of thought and a  
multispecies co-evolution of intra-actions and interactions proposes  
to move away from the opposition between the human and the so-called  
'natural' [....]
[....] so that it is possible to consider artistic practice as a  
process of compost-making [....]

Taking art as the shared capacity of letting things and beings to  
create their own meaning and expressing it, we follow a day of chained  
conversations on agencies of animals, the politics of worlding, the  
artist as "instaurateur," hypnosis, instrumental mediations and social  
change.

Allowing intellectual suppositions to become internalized as  
sensations & feelings [....]

[....] a poem [....] and after words and after worlds and laughter all  
has the ecological become our...?

AA, CC-B, VD, RG, FG-D, ML

(excerpts from a collectively written text)

wherearewegoingwaltwhitman.rietveldacademie.nl

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