[-empyre-] Cambridge and Paris

Tue Oct 12 00:59:58 EST 2010

Dear Jean-Baptiste,

The problem with Rancière's aesthetics as politics is that he seems to
be utterly unaware of the technology that, Stiegler says, defines the
human and the present. In a recent conversation with Rancière I asked
him where were new media and techné, and the 21st century, in his
thinking, and he said to me that he is not Bernard Stiegler and there
was a difference of opinion. When I asked Stiegler what his philosophy
would say to Rancière's he said that Rancière's 'partage du sensible'
had no sense of sharing the distribution of virtual reality or
cyberspace, et cetera. Now this is politics... We did not invite
Rancière to this year's colloquium, this year the theoretical focus is
on Stiegler. But we want to impress the sensuous over the theoretical,
the making and doing rather than get involved in French politics...

And yet these events have to be organised. We have a committee to
organise this event, as much as it is open and invitational to
everyone. We have had problems with institutions and one of the main
aims of Making Sense is to use the creative arts to invigorate,
challenge and redistribute the elite hierarchy that operates our
institutions.

All the best,

Lorna

2010/10/11 Jean-baptiste Labrune <labrune at media.mit.edu>:
> Dear Lorna,
>
> Thanks for your messages, this looks like a great event ! I would love to
> follow it on the web and read a recension of the event later on, do you have
> any pointers for that ?
>
> You highlight how it is important for you and the organisers of this event
> to discuss and experiment, and to define an aesthetic encounter, in a shared
> environment. Could you explain a little bit how this event was curated and
> especially why the organisation was not an open proces (where a large
> audience and not a close amount of curators could discuss, experiment and
> share) ?
>
> As you mention: "At the colloquium in Paris we are proud and honored to
> present our keynote speaker as Bernard Stiegler. (..) his activist political
> society Ars Industrialis is trying to change the world... see
> http://arsindustrialis.org/ "
> I am very happy for you to be proud to change the world, but in that case,
> proud for proud, why not invinting Rancière himself ? Did he refuse to join
> such a project ? What would be his take on this initiative ?
>
> Being in Paris or in Cambridge is great not only to "encounter" aesthetic
> representations but also embodied symbolic machines like Latour, Stiegler,
> Rancière (and the ghosts of the Cultural Studies haunting institutions
> through their students). When you talk about the "autonomous space opened by
> the artwork" how do you deal with the necessary situated (à la Lucy Suchman)
> politi that authorized (authored) this space ?  Maybe when you "encounter"
> an artwork in Paris nowadays, you meet as well the curators and the
> socio-political conditions that allowed its manifestation rather than
> chatting with Levinas...
>
> To have organised some events there in the past, I know that criticising is
> easy and that it is always simpler to decide in advance than to deconstruct
> ad-infinitum (french yack shaving ). However, opening the curation /
> organisation to public forae (like in scientific conference where you have a
> Call for Organisation not only a Call for Participation) maybe would open
> the discussion and give an alternative to the power of a curated agonistic
> discourse where the arguments and their critic are bounded by the
> socio-material conditions of event organisation - that create a format not
> far from the space between to advertisements - hence controlling the
> critical discursive space (the classics : we only have time for 3 questions,
> because we took a little bit more time this morning let's talk over lunch,
> etc, etc).
>
> Yep, curation constitutes social order, and Pompidou is a curation machine,
> in the long french discretionary/aristocratic tradition. Making sense while
> in the heart of the power fountain is always an art form that implies
> humour, since sense and political justifications live usually in different
> planets. In the other Cambridge where I studied - and another power center
> that combines softly french and british establishment traditions - sense
> making is more about spinning out any form of alternative to non-curated
> critics, à la Bernays. Will your event be able to perceive itself and escape
> the temptation of being hypnotised by its production or its guest list ?
>
> Cheers,
> Jb
>
> Le 11 oct. 10 à 07:22, Lorna Collins a écrit :
>
>> Dear Patty, dear all,
>>
>> Making Sense is more about discussing and experimenting with these
>> problematics rather than having a teleological definition to set them.
>> The point is to use the arts to open a way of thinking that traverses
>> many disciplines and media to bring forward a constructive and
>> accessible sense of the real. We do this from the rhyzomatic
>> connections made between different presentations, media and
>> individuals at the colloquia, which open up a creative interface for
>> difference, which we then publish (this will happen in Paris, online
>> or in the second book) and extend.
>>
>> To define the aesthetic encounter -- this means the experience of
>> encountering or interacting with an artwork. The encounter is
>> immediately a passive phenomenological experience where you are
>> touched by an artwork. It is then about the conscious experience of
>> reacting to this artwork. We can think of the encounter in terms of
>> Rancière's notion of the 'partage du sensible', the distribution of
>> the sensible, which refers to the situation of an encounter -- what
>> you can sense, who can sense it, where it is, and how you can
>> articulate a response to it. Then the aesthetic encounter is
>> political. The aesthetic encounter takes place in the autonomous space
>> opened by the artwork. The aesthetic refers to an artwork, which can
>> have any form or medium. The artwork is something that is made in
>> response to a situation, i.e. it is the object (which can take any
>> form) of the expression or an articulation of the artist. We are all
>> artists.
>>
>> "How does the change implied from "encounter" differ in function from
>> the change implied in "intervention" or "mobilization"?" I think that
>> intervention and mobilization refer to ways of engaging with the
>> encounter and installing its manifest implications. An encounter can
>> be passive -- your senses are stimulated and touched by an artwork.
>> (cf. Jean-Luc Nancy on sense and touch here) You don't have to do
>> anything except receive the stimulus opened by the artwork. The
>> content of this experience, and what the artwork expresses, then opens
>> an interface which can provide an intervention or be mobilized. This
>> is what we are trying to do with Making Sense.
>>
>> At the colloquium in Paris we are proud and honored to present our
>> keynote speaker as Bernard Stiegler. He writes about the inherent,
>> ex-tatic technology and prostheses that define the human, whilst his
>> activist political society Ars Industrialis is trying to change the
>> world... see http://arsindustrialis.org/
>>
>> Lorna
>>
>> 2010/10/10 Patricia R. Zimmermann <patty at ithaca.edu>:
>>>
>>> Lorna:
>>>
>>> Could you explain in theoretical and practical terms your idea of how
>>> Making Sense facilitates "aesthetic encounters."?
>>>
>>> What is the theory of an "aesthetic encounter"?
>>>
>>> How does your group define "aesthetic"?
>>>
>>> And, how does your group define "encounter"?
>>>
>>> How does the change implied from "encounter" differ in function from the
>>> change implied in "intervention" or "mobilization"?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for sharing any thoughts on the above based on your
>>> experience in Making Sense.
>>>
>>> Patty
>>>
>>> -------
>>> Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ph.D.
>>> Professor, Cinema, Photography and Media Arts
>>> Roy H. Park School of Communications
>>> Codirector, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival
>>> Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies
>>> 953 Danby Road
>>> Ithaca College
>>> Ithaca, New York 14850 USA
>>> Office: +1 (607) 274 3431
>>> FAX: +1 (607) 274 7078
>>> http://faculty.ithaca.edu/patty/
>>> http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff
>>> BLOG: http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff10/blogs/open_spaces/
>>> patty at ithaca.edu
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- Original message ----
>>>>
>>>> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:55:29 -0400
>>>> From: empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au (on behalf of Renate Ferro
>>>> <rtf9 at cornell.edu>)
>>>> Subject: [-empyre-] Cambridge and Paris
>>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>>>
>>>> Lorna Collins wrote:
>>>>
>>>> .......We want to analyse and discuss the aesthetic encounter and an art
>>>> practice as a medium that can help us make sense of the world. We
>>>> bring together artists and philosophers, scholars and students,
>>>> thinkers and writers, from all around the world, to build an interface
>>>> between artistic creation, theoretical debate and academic
>>>> scholarship. At the colloquium we want to formulate new ways to frame
>>>> and develop discourse, and found a new way of making sense, which can
>>>> challenge and invigorate the protocol, regulation and system of
>>>> academia. This is a different kind of conference – there is no
>>>> hierarchical division between the plenary speakers and the audience,
>>>> we have an economy of mutual exchange and intimate debate. This
>>>> Colloquium.......
>>>>
>>>> Good Morning Lorna,  Thanks for giving us a general overview of your own
>>>> philosophy and the history of the Making Sense Colloquium.  I'm
>>>> wondering if
>>>> you could talk about the event being held at the Pompidou in Paris? Do
>>>> you
>>>> have a mission for this event that might be slightly different that the
>>>> Cambridge event in 2009?  Was there a publication that cam out of the
>>>> Cambridge event or what kind of information was gathered that perhaps
>>>> has
>>>> informed the event in Paris? The statement above is so broad so I'm
>>>> wondering if you have defined the Paris event differently based on what
>>>> happened in Cambridge?
>>>>
>>>> Lorna will be introducing two of the Visiting Artist's who will be
>>>> featured
>>>> in Paris later today but I'm hoping that she will give us more of a
>>>> sense of
>>>> the event's history so that perhaps that would give our empyre
>>>> subscribers a
>>>> idea of the underpinnings of potential discussion points.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks Lorna.  Renate
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 10/10/10 12:34 AM, "Lorna Collins" <lpc29 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Renate,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the intro! I’d like to say a bit about Making Sense… This
>>>>> is the second interdisciplinary colloquium of Making Sense.  The first
>>>>> was held at the University of Cambridge in 2009. At these events we
>>>>> want to analyse and discuss the aesthetic encounter and an art
>>>>> practice as a medium that can help us make sense of the world. We
>>>>> bring together artists and philosophers, scholars and students,
>>>>> thinkers and writers, from all around the world, to build an interface
>>>>> between artistic creation, theoretical debate and academic
>>>>> scholarship. At the colloquium we want to formulate new ways to frame
>>>>> and develop discourse, and found a new way of making sense, which can
>>>>> challenge and invigorate the protocol, regulation and system of
>>>>> academia. This is a different kind of conference – there is no
>>>>> hierarchical division between the plenary speakers and the audience,
>>>>> we have an economy of mutual exchange and intimate debate. This
>>>>> colloquium can be seen as an artistic creation or installation in
>>>>> itself. I think we can all be artists. Participants are encouraged to
>>>>> react and articulate their opinion.
>>>>>
>>>>> How does this fit into my own work? I am neither specifically a
>>>>> writer, nor artist, nor philosopher, but use these genres
>>>>> simultaneously to make sense of the world, to discover my place within
>>>>> it, and to think about what might threaten our most basic need to
>>>>> inhabit it. I use art to write philosophy, and I use philosophy to
>>>>> inspire the plastic forms of art I make; in between my visual,
>>>>> intellectual and phenomenological experiments I hope to invent a
>>>>> practical, accessible method for ‘making sense’.
>>>>>
>>>>> I take academic theory to the creative resources of practising art, in
>>>>> the efforts to challenge and invigorate the political scholarship of
>>>>> academic discourse through the basic, replenishing and regenerative
>>>>> facets of creativity. In this sense I am perhaps a diplomat and
>>>>> curator who seeks to arrange and mobilise the emancipatory interface
>>>>> that art can offer everyone, whilst trying to confirm and cement this
>>>>> chance in the more formal terms of academia.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is the kind of ethos that lies behind Making Sense the
>>>>> collective, which is the emerging group of artists and philosophers
>>>>> who came to the first and are coming to the second colloquium. Making
>>>>> Sense is bigger than singular events. We are trying to start a
>>>>> movement. The Making Sense project, beyond the colloquia, is
>>>>> ultimately about founding a communitarian practice, through art, that
>>>>> provides a restorative social act. It would be very interesting to
>>>>> discuss what that means and how it might be possible…
>>>>>
>>>>> I look forward to hearing your thoughts...
>>>>>
>>>>> Lorna
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 2010/10/10 Renate Ferro <rtf9 at cornell.edu>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Welcome to our October discussion, ³Contextualizing Making Sense. The
>>>>>> alignment of criticality and configurations of embodiment and space
>>>>>> permit
>>>>>> creative flows of networks, resources, research and discussions whose
>>>>>> configurations prove limitless.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lorna Collins and her team of collaborators have invited Tim and I to
>>>>>> represent empyre this month at the ³Making Sense Colloquium² at the
>>>>>> IRI-Centre Pompidou, Institut Télécom the 19th and 20th of October.
>>>>>> http://www.makingsensesociety.org/
>>>>>> <http://www.makingsensesociety.org/>
>>>>>> Lorna is a theorist and a PhD student at the University of Cambridge
>>>>>> where
>>>>>> she is a Foundation Scholar at Jesus College.  Her academic research
>>>>>> pushes
>>>>>> to forge the development of Making Sense via her research and writing
>>>>>> but
>>>>>> also through various events such as the ³Making Sense² colloquium. The
>>>>>> colloquium brings together a wide variety of international theorists
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> artists some of whom will be our guests this month on empyre.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Both independently and collaboratively, Tim and I have worked between
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> spaces of theory and practice for many years.  Through Tim¹s
>>>>>> international
>>>>>> curating as well as his work in founding and directing the Rose
>>>>>> Goldsen
>>>>>> Archive for New Media Art and in my case the founding and directing of
>>>>>> The
>>>>>> Tinker Factory, an interdisciplinary lab for research and practice we
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> independently found venues for forging theory and practice.  Together
>>>>>> our
>>>>>> collaboration with empyre has given us an opportunity to investigate
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> negotiations between theory and practice historically in May 2009 our
>>>>>> discussion Critical Motion Practice merged intersections that entailed
>>>>>> both
>>>>>> self-reflective and interactive movement at the intersections of art,
>>>>>> choreography, architecture, activism and theory.  Again in September,
>>>>>> 2007
>>>>>> our discussion on Critical Spatial Practice highlighted themes of
>>>>>> social
>>>>>> responsibility at cross-disciplinary intersections.  The questions we
>>>>>> asked
>>>>>> revolved between the technological and critical approaches between
>>>>>> practice
>>>>>> and theory and how those questions empowered creativity, enhanced
>>>>>> artistic
>>>>>> activism and encouraged artistic/performance practice and
>>>>>> collaboration.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We are looking forward to joining the Making Sense participants and
>>>>>> anticipate the international online discussion that will evolve with
>>>>>> our
>>>>>> 1400 subscribers. Each week we will highlight a handful of Making
>>>>>> Sense
>>>>>> guests in hopes that their own project descriptions will entice our
>>>>>> members
>>>>>> to add their own ideas and comments.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Together collaboratively we are hoping to open up the discussion of
>>>>>> Making
>>>>>> Sense. As an artist my practice involves instincts, whim, research,
>>>>>> reading,
>>>>>> discussion, investigation and critical analysis. When a research
>>>>>> thread
>>>>>> ³makes sense² I assume that my inquiry is finished and the project is
>>>>>> finished a cue to proceed to the next.  The act of ³Making Sense²
>>>>>> implies a
>>>>>> search for resolution.  Though in the process of making it is the
>>>>>> uneasiness, the questioning, the restlessness, the point that is not
>>>>>> making
>>>>>> sense that excites me to continue.  Welcome to ³Contextualizing Making
>>>>>> Sense² or not?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We would like to welcome Lorna Collins as our first guest. We will
>>>>>> begin
>>>>>> this month on empyre by asking Lorna to answer a few questions for our
>>>>>> -empyre members.  Can you fill us in a bit more about your own work as
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> relates to the Making Sense Colloquium?   Additionally what can we
>>>>>> expect
>>>>>> from the forum itself coming up in a few weeks?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Renate and Tim
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Renate Ferro
>>>>>> URL:  http://www.renateferro.net
>>>>>> Email:   <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
>>>>>> ,
>>>>>> Visiting Assistant Professor of Art
>>>>>> Cornell University
>>>>>> Department of Art, Tjaden Hall
>>>>>> Ithaca, NY  14853
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Co-moderator of _empyre soft skinned space
>>>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Art Editor, diacritics
>>>>>> http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> empyre forum
>>>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Lorna Collins
>> PhD Candidate: "Making Sense; art practice as a social act"
>> Jesus College
>> Cambridge
>> CB5 8BL
>> http://web.me.com/lornacollins/
>> http://www.makingsensesociety.org./
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
> --
>
> Jean-Baptiste Labrune
> MIT Media Lab
> 20 Ames St E14-464C
> Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
>
> http://web.media.mit.edu/~labrune/
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>

-- 
Lorna Collins
PhD Candidate: "Making Sense; art practice as a social act"
Jesus College
Cambridge
CB5 8BL
http://web.me.com/lornacollins/
http://www.makingsensesociety.org./