Wellcome Collection, 16th June, 10.30-1700

As humans, we have an ability to empathise with one another. Reading emotions and sharing them are integral to our survival and social cohesion. But why is it that objects can also spark these feelings in us? When we watch puppets, what triggers our emotions? Is it their movement or is it simply the stories they tell? And can we be just as moved by everyday objects?

None of these questions have straightforward answers, but in this unique event we’ll uncover the latest science exploring the mysteries of empathy in puppetry and elsewhere in culture.

The morning will start with an extract of Blind Summit’s critically acclaimed performance The Table, followed by discussion about the relationship between puppeteers and puppets. Satellite performances will happen over lunch, followed by a discussion about the ways we relate to objects in the afternoon.

Consortium Director Steve Connor, author of Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things (London: Profile, 2011), will give a talk at this event entitled Feeling Things. Mistrusting our conventional mistrust of the attachment to material things, it will consider some of the emotions that objects help or even teach us to feel – disgust, curiosity, and tenderness. Perhaps, without objects, we would never learn how to love, or love to learn.

£20 full price/£15 concession including a full day of discussion and performance as well as lunch and refreshments.

To book, please call 020 7611 2222.

On 29 Feb, visiting speaker Hillel Schwartz will be giving a talk titled ‘The Noise of Almost Nothing’.

All are welcome to this attend this joint School of Arts/London Consortium event, which is organised by the London Sound Seminar.

Hillel Schwartz is the author of Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond (New York: Zone, 2011) and The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles (New York: Zone, 1998).

The talk will be held in the Keynes Library, Room 114, 43 Gordon Square, 4.30–6pm, 29th February.

The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.

Noise

Wednesday 1 February, 4.30-6.00 pm [Rm 113, 43 Gordon Square]
‘The Soundproof Study: Victorian Professional Identity and Urban noise’ in John M. Picker, Victorian Soundscapes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp.41–81 [also look at pp.15–16 from Ch.1]

Wednesday 15 February, 4.30-6.00 pm [Rm 113, 43 Gordon Square]
Emily Thompson, ‘Noise and Modern Culture, 1900–1933′, in The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp.115–168

Wednesday 29 February, 4.30-6.00 pm [Rm 114 – Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square – NOTE DIFFERENT ROOM].
‘The Noise of Almost Nothing’ – talk by Hillel Schwartz (author of Making Noise)

Wednesday 14th March, , 4.30-6.00 pm [Rm 113, 43 Gordon Square]
Friedrich Kittler, extracts from Gramophone, Film Typewriter and forthcoming chapter ‘The God of Ears’ (on Pink Floyd’s ‘Brain Damage’) [selections TBC]

To subscribe to the London Sound Seminar mailing list: from the email address you wish to subscribe with, send the following command within the body of the message to listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk: SUBSCRIBE LONDONSOUNDSEMINAR Firstname Lastname

We will use the list for announcements of meetings and events, and it can be used for discussion too. To send an message to the list, simply email londonsoundseminar@jiscmail.ac.uk

Out of the Archive: Artists, Images and History

Filipa César, Black Balance (work in progress) 2010 © Filipa César

Friday 18 November 2011, 10.30–17.30
Saturday 19 November 2011, 10.30–17.30

A conference developed in collaboration with the London Consortium.
This conference was originally conceived by the Colonial Film project team, and coincides with the launch of the Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire website.

Drawing on contemporary art practice, this two-day international conference explores the relationship between historical research and artists’ methods and processes when working with recorded images found in archives. Contributors address current debates around the validity of research generated through artistic strategies, how these processes complicate forms of historical narration, as well as how they inform and challenge conventional methods of historical research.

Contributors include: Sven Augustijnen, Frédérique Berthet, Adam Broomberg, Bernadette Buckley, Filipa César, Oliver Chanarin, TJ Demos, Mary Ann Doane, Nanina Guyer, Mark Nash, Colin MacCabe, Naeem Mohaiemen, Laura Mulvey, Michael Renov, Zineb Sedira, Louise Sheedy, Patrik Sjöberg and Chou Yu-Ling.

Tate Modern Starr Auditorium
£30 (£25 concessions), booking required

Programme

For tickets book online
or call 020 7887 8888.

The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.

Sound Objects

12 October – Steve Connor on Tape [4.30–6pm, Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square]

John Hurt in Krapp’s Last Tape
Atom Egoyan, Steenbeckett
Steven Connor, ‘Looping the Loop: Tape-Time in Burroughs and Beckett’

26 October – Aura Satz on the Oramics machine [4.30–6pm, Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square]

9 November – Jonathan Tee on the Public Address System [4.30–6pm, Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square]

7 December – Holly Pester on the Answer Machine [4.30–6pm, Rm 213, 43 Gordon Square] [Note the change in location: this will be held in Steve Connor's office, Rm 213, 43 Gordon Square]

To subscribe to the London Sound Seminar mailing list: from the email address you wish to subscribe with, send the following command within the body of the message to listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk: SUBSCRIBE LONDONSOUNDSEMINAR Firstname Lastname

We will use the list for announcements of meetings and events, and it can be used for discussion too. To send an message to the list, simply email londonsoundseminar@jiscmail.ac.uk

Tom McCarthy on Robbe-Grillet: Thursday 9 June, 7:00pm at the Institut Francais, 17 Queensberry Place, London
tickets and information here.

Words on Mondays with Robert Coover: Monday 13 June, 7:00pm at Kings Place, London N1 9AG
Discussion with Robert Coover, John Banville, and Tom McCarthy.
tickets and information here.

Electra presents Dirty Literature Series: Thursday 16 June, 7:00pm at the National Portrait Gallery
Francesco Pedraglio and Tom McCarthy
Tickets and information here.

Calling All Agents: A symposium on the work of Tom McCarthy
Birkbeck College, Univeristy of London, 22-23 July
Calling All Agents: A symposium on the work of Tom McCarthy’ is the first academic symposium on the work of British novelist Tom McCarthy. This event will feature papers on McCarthy’s three novels, Remainder (2005), Men in Space (2007) and C (2010), as well as his role as General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society, and his relationship with the Tintin series. The day will conclude with a reading by and Q&A session with McCarthy.
Registration and information here.

The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.

All meetings are in room 112, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1

Wednesday 1 June 2011 4.30-6.00
Sound Poetry
Bob Cobbing, ‘Some Statements on Sound Poetry’
Roland Barthes, ‘The Grain of the Voice’, in Image-Music-Text (London: Fontana, 1977), pp.179–189*
Henry Chopin, Sound Poetry, especially “Vibrespace” (1963), “Le Soleil est mécanique” (1972) and “Le Rire est Debout” (1969)

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 4.30-6.00
Digital Sound
Aden Evens, Sound Ideas: Music, Machines and Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), Chapter 3 ‘Sound and Digits’, especially ‘The Question Concerning the Digital’ pp. 62-80 and ‘The Grain of the Voice’ pp.114-124
Jonathan Sterne, ‘The Death and Life of Digital Audio‘, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 31 (2006): 338-348.

Wednesday 29 June 2011 4.30-6.00
Walter Ong, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp.111–138 [first published 1967]
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp.13–19

To subscribe to the London Sound Seminar mailing list:

From the email address you wish to subscribe with, send the following command within the body of the message to listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk: SUBSCRIBE LONDONSOUNDSEMINAR Firstname Lastname

We will use the list for announcements of meetings and events, and it can be used for discussion too. To send an message to the list, simply email londonsoundseminar@jiscmail.ac.uk

Hidden
A six-week, multi-disciplinary course at Tate Modern
Saturdays 5 March – 19 April 2011
Led by Lucy Scholes and Richard Martin

Contemporary culture is fascinated by the ‘hidden’ – “ the idea that secret desires and covert activities are taking place behind closed doors. This new six-week course places architectural, cinematic and psychoanalytic theories of interiority alongside the models explored by modern and contemporary artists within the Tate Collection. Concepts of containment and concealment will be assessed across a range of contexts and media with some key questions in mind: In what sense are our memories and desires housed? Do individuals contain a chamber of secrets waiting to be unlocked? What remains truly ‘hidden’ to us?

The course begins with Michael Haneke’s film Cache (2005), which has provoked widespread debate over its representation of personal and political concealment. In the weeks that follow, we will investigate the psychology of hidden spaces, Freudian theories of narrative, the role of family life, and the myths of the modern media. The course ends with a trip to Tate Britain to see Mike Nelson’s labyrinthine installation The Coral Reef (2000), which explores the unseen layers of contemporary society. Each weekly session will pivot around a central theme, with film clips, illustrated presentations and short handouts offering suggestive directions of inquiry.

Booking details, and a full course outline, are available here.

In the first three months of 2011 a series of four talks will explore the nexus of ‘sound’, ‘noise’ and ‘music’ from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In the context of a bourgeoning sensitivity to the auditory across a range of disciplines, these talks will consider how particular formulations of these interdependent notions transform ‘sound’ from an isolated attribute of sensory experience into a embedded, ecological means of world-inhabitation.

As has been an ongoing tradition for the London Consortium, the series will be held in the Wheatsheaf pub (25 Rathbone Place, W1T 1DG) – a favourite of 1930s writers such as George Orwell and Dylan Thomas – a venue that will also provide a great opportunity for continuing informal discussion following each paper.

The current series has been organised by London Consortium and Birkbeck College postgraduate students Matt Clements and Jonathan Tee, and is also associated with the London Sound Seminar. It is free and open to all.

If you would like more information about these events please contact: Jonathan Tee (jonathantee [at] cantab [dot] net) or Matt Clements (m.clements [at] bbk [dot] ac [dot] uk).

Wednesday, 19th January, 7pm
Eric Clarke – ‘Musical Meaning: an Ecological Approach’
Eric Clarke went to the University of Sussex to read for a degree in Neurobiology, and graduated with a degree in Music. In 2007 he was elected to the Heather Professorship of Music at Oxford, and is currently an Associate Director of the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music. For 10 years he was a member of the improvising string quartet The Lapis Quartet. Eric Clarke’s research embraces a number of areas within the psychology of music, music theory, and musical aesthetics/semiotics. He is the author of a recent monograph on listening (Ways of Listening. An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning OUP, 2005) and co-editor of a volume on Empirical Musicology (OUP, 2004). He has also published more than 60 papers and book chapters on music related topics.

Tuesday, 1st February, 7pm
David Toop – ‘A Sinister Practice: The Uncanny Space Between Improvisation, Composition, Live Performance and the Digital Domain’
David Toop is a composer/musician, author and curator who has worked in many fields of sound art and music, including improvisation, sound installations, field recordings, pop music production, music for television, theatre and dance. He has published five books, including Ocean of Sound, Haunted Weather, and Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener. He has released eight solo albums, including Screen Ceremonies, Black Chamber and Sound Body, As a critic he has written for many publications, including The Wire, The Face, Leonardo Music Journal and Bookforum. Exhibitions he has curated include Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, London, Playing John Cage at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Blow Up at Flat-Time House, London. Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London, he is a Senior Research Fellow at London College of Communication.

Wednesday, 16th February, 7pm
Henry Stobart – ‘Saturating the Soundscape? Conceptualizing Sound and Silence in the Andes and Beyond’
Henry Stobart is Reader in Music/Ethnomusicology in the Music Department of Royal Holloway, University of London. His research has principally focused on indigenous music of the Bolivian Andes; examined from a wide range of perspectives. His books include the monograph Music and the Poetics of Production in the Bolivian Andes (Ashgate, 2006) and several edited volumes: The New (Ethno)musicologies (Scarecrow, 2008), Knowledge and Learning in the Andes: Ethnographic Perspectives (co-edited with Rosaleen Howard; Liverpool University Press, 2002), and Sound (coedited with Patricia Kruth; Cambridge University Press, 2000). He is currently working on a monograph provisionally entitled Digital Indigeneity and has been invited to write a theoretical volume on ethnomusicological perspectives to Music and Environment.

Tuesday, 1st March, 7pm
Karin Bijsterveld – ‘Car Sound Ecologies: A History of Listening to and in the Automobile’
Karin Bijsterveld is historian and professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society Studies, Maastricht University. She is author of Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (MIT Press 2008), and co-editor (with José van Dijck) of Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices (AUP 2009). With Trevor Pinch, she is working on The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. She has recently been awarded with a NWO-VICI grant for the project Sonic Skills: Sound and Listening in Science, Technology and Medicine, 1920s-now.

The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.

All meetings are in room 112, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1

Wednesday 6 October, 4.30-6.00
Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening (New York: Fordham University Press 2007), pp.1-18.

Wednesday 20 October, 4.30-6.00
Michel Serres, Genesis, trans. Geneviève James and James Nielson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), pp. 2 – 8, ‘The Object of the Book’; pp. 12 – 14. ‘Noise’ and ‘Sea Noise’; pp. 19 – 22, ‘Ichnography’ and ‘The Foot’; pp. 25 – 26. ‘The Apparition of Forms’; pp. 57. – 70. ‘Dovetail’, ‘Demons’ and ‘Vortex’.

Wednesday 3 November, 4.30-6.00
Rudolf Arnheim, Radio:An Art of Sound, trans. Margaret Ludwig and Herbert Read (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), pp. 211-25
Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Film and Radio, trans. and ed. Marc Silberman (London: Metheun, 2001), pp. 41-46 Session led by James Emmott.

Wednesday 17 November, 4.30-6.00
Samuel Beckett, Embers.
Donald McWhinnie, The Art of Radio (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), pp. 21-28, 34-36, 77-93.

Wednesday 1st December, 4.30-6.00
Historical Soundscapes
Mark M. Smith, Bruce R. Smith and John Picker. Session led by Katherine Hunt. Texts to be notified.

To subscribe to the London Sound Seminar mailing list:

From the email address you wish to subscribe with, send the following command within the body of the message to listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk:

SUBSCRIBE LONDONSOUNDSEMINAR Firstname Lastname

We will use the list for announcements of meetings and events, and it can be used for discussion too. To send an message to the list, simply email londonsoundseminar@jiscmail.ac.uk

(RE)BRANDING FEMINISM

A conference hosted by the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (IGRS), Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5ND.

1st-2nd March 2011.

In recent times there has been a general recognition, if not acceptance of many of feminism’s key concepts. But does this mean that it has ceased to assert itself as a unique movement? Indeed, should feminism be (re)branded in an age when all ideologies are subject to market forces? And what should this rebranding consist of?

Two years on from the stimulating ‘Where are we now? A workshop on women and heterosexuality’ hosted by the IGRS, this conference will address some of the issues raised then (see link below) to question the place of feminism in the twenty-first century. While there has always been ambivalent press and general apathy towards those issues that once encouraged women to put the political into the personal, nowadays it is women themselves who think there is nothing more to discuss. Why has there been a decline in the link between the personal and the ideological? Do we need a different kind of feminism to meet the cultural, political and academic needs of a younger generation?

Abstracts of between 200-300 words are sought that explore any aspect of (re)branding feminism. Topics might include but are not limited to:

· Are sisters doing it for themselves?
· Feminism on the frontline
· I can be a real bitch
· Family romances
· Home-makers versus career women
· God was/is a woman
· Feminism and the sex industry
· Feminist renaissance
· Feminism is bollocks
· Rebranding feminism
· Pub talk

Poster submissions are also sought on any topic related to rebranding feminism.

Please send abstracts and poster ideas both to Jean Owen (ojean27@yahoo.com) and Elisha Foust (elishafoust@googlemail.com) by 5pm 1st October 2010.

From 26th to 31 July, the London Consortium is hosting the 2010 European Summer School in Cultural Studies, on The Cultures of Food, Cooking and Eating .

Programme

Participants and Abstracts

Sunday, 16 May 2010

11:30-18:00

A London Consortium public event

What are the historical records of hatred? Where in the archive should we look to discover the roots of contempt? Who are the protagonists of this, the haters or the hated?

Marking the publication of Anthony Julius’s major new book, Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford University Press), this one day event brings together historians, artists and cultural critics to shed light on the challenges of documenting and accounting for histories of hatred. Speakers will explore the problems of documenting and representing histories of racism, anti-Semitism and periods of extreme cultural and political oppression and conflict.

Speakers include Anthony Julius, Anthony Bale (Medieval Studies, Birkbeck), Joanna Bourke (History, Birkbeck), Steve Connor (The London Consortium), Deborah Lipstadt (Jewish Studies, Emory University and Pratap Rughani (Media Studies, University of the Arts).

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH

Booking:
Tickets £10 / £7 (student concessions)

For bookings and general enquiries, please contact Dr. Noam Leshem: lnoam@hotmail.com
Tel: 0778 3233591

Space is limited and early registration is recommended

2 July 2010 – 4 July 2010

A Multidisciplinary International Conference

A three day conference convened by David Bennett (University of Melbourne) and Ivan Ward (Freud Museum) supported by Birkbeck College and the Australian Research Council.

This conference, and the volume of essays that will result from it, aims to explore all aspects of the nexus between psychoanalysis, money and the economy.

The conference will feature a number of eminent keynote speakers. The pre-conference programme will include a workshop convened by Andrew Samuels on the theme: “What kind of economic system do we want? – an exploration with psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in mind”. Pre-conference events will be held at the Freud Museum, Hampstead, and the conference venue will be Birkbeck College, Bloomsbury.

Registration: £145 / £105 (Full conference). Day tickets also available.

For further information please click here or email: info@freud.org.uk

Consortium student Burhanuddin Baki will lead a five-week seminar series for London Consortium students on Mathematics for the Humanities and Cultural Studies.

These will take place 2pm – 4pm on the following dates:

• Tuesday 23rd February: Set Theory
• Tuesday 2nd March: Mathematical Proof
• Thursday 11th March: The Mathematics of Networks
• Tuesday 16th March: Number Theory
• Tuesday 23rd March: Combinations, Counting and Probability Theory

The series will focus on the emergence of what appears to be the beginning of a new ‘mathematical turn’ in critical philosophy and cultural studies. In this burgeoning trend, more advanced concepts and contemporary results from pure mathematics are introduced in order to help think through various issues and problems in the humanities today. This turn is evident in, among others, Alain Badiou’s philosophical expliques of set theory and algebraic geometry; the recent interpretations of Gilles Deleuze’s work by Manuel de Landa and Brian Massumi; and the various contemporary investigations into the more algorithmic, computational and topological aspects of internet culture and the new media. In order to partake more meaningfully in this new turn, some acquaintance with advanced mathematical concepts might be useful, and some active discussions aimed at trying to provide a critical and cultural investigation of these concepts should be conducted – which is what this seminar will attempt to offer.

When radio began at the beginning of the twentieth century it was necessarily a communication rather than a broadcast medium (the only thing to listen to were transmissions from other radio users). Now, after more than a century of mass broadcasting, radio – the transmission of live and recorded sound – is moving from being a broadcast medium to being once again a medium of communication. Under these conditions, how might the production and broadcasting of sound come to form part of academic discourse? Theorists and historians of sound have devoted much time to thinking about radio. Might it now be possible to begin thinking in it?

As part of Static, the London Consortium’s audio-visual development project, Thinking Radio is a series of workshops led by notable practitioners of radio, who will reflect on what radio has done and what it may be able to do in the future. The workshops will be practical as well as critical, and will encourage those attending it to explore practical possibilities for the production of radio work in conjunction with their academic research, and as part of the cultural programme of the London Consortium. Numbers are limited, and those who wish to attend should contact Steve Connor in advance.

Wednesday 24 February 2.00-4.00
308, 30 Russell Square, London WC1E
Tim Dee, author of The Running Sky (2009), will reflect on his experience as a BBC radio producer for 30 years.

Wednesday 10 March 2.00-4.00
308, 30 Russell Square, London WC1E
Steven Connor, ‘Thinking Out Loud’.

The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.

All meetings are in room 308, Department of English and Humanities Building, 30 Russell Square, London WC1

Animals and Sound

Monday 15th February, 4.00-6.00
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, ‘Of the Refrain’, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (London: Athlone, 1988), pp. 310-50.

Monday 8 March, 4.00-6.00
Donald R. Griffin, Listening in the Dark: The Acoustic Orientation of Bats and Men (New York: Dover; London: Constable, 1974). Extracts to be supplied.

Monday 22 March, 4.30-6.30
Oliver Messiaen, Oiseaux exotiques, (1955–56), Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956–58)
Emily Doolittle, ‘Animals in the Concert Hall: A History of Animals in Western Music’, Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review, 12 (2008)
If you would like to join the London Sound Seminar or help develop its activities, please contact Steven Connor

The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.

All meetings are in room 308, Department of English and Humanities Building, 30 Russell Square, London WC1

Thursday 12th November, 4.00 pm
Sound in Film
James Lastra, ‘Reading, Writing, and Representing Sound’, in Sound Theory/Sound Practice, ed. Rick Altman (London: Routledge, 1992), pp.65-86
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, ed. and trans. by Claudia Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp.89-109
Tom Levin, ‘The Acoustic Dimension: Notes on Cinema Sound’, Screen, 25 (1984): 55-68

Monday 30 November, 4.00 pm
Music and Postmodernity
Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Music and Postmodernity’, trans. David Bennett, New Formations, 66 (2009): 37-45
David Bennett, ‘Lyotard, Post-Politics and Riotous Music’, New Formations, 66 (2009): 46-57

Monday 7 December, 4.00 pm
Listening to Listening
Jonathan Gross, ‘An Ethnography of the Proms: Interim Report’
If you would like to join the London Sound Seminar or help develop its activities, please contact Steven Connor

GHost
Hosting I: Haunted Houses

20 October 2009, 6.30pm, Court Room, Senate House (South Block), University of London, Malet Street, WC1 7HU

GHost is organised by Sarah Sparkes and Consortium alumna Ricarda Vidal. It brings together artists, writers, curators, researchers and others to investigate the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture. It consists of two workshops, so-called ‘hostings’ and an exhibition and screening of moving image art. The hostings take place in the haunted rooms of Senate House on 20 October and 17 November and the exhibition will be hosted by St John’s on Bethnal Green on 18 December. Both ‘hostings’ will be documented by the artist Julian Wakeling with a series of ‘ghost images’, which will haunt St Johns on the night of 18 December.

GHost is organised with the support of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London and St John’s Church on Bethnal Green

This is a free event but please rsvp ghost.hostings@gmail.com if you want to attend.

For more info please email us, join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=117301037117
or visit our blog: http://host-a-ghost.blogspot.com/

Friday 23rd October 6-8pm
Dan Graham Pavillion
Hayward Gallery

Transgressive Sight and the Viewer Interrupted

Consortium student Oliver Harris will introduce his research on the myth of Actaeon as the starting point for an exploration of shame, guilt and voyeurism. Drawing on other myths of transgressive sight – Orpheus and Pentheus in particular – as well as contemporary debates regarding pornography and the law, Harris will also address the recent exhibition and closure of Richard Prince’s installation Spiritual America (1983) at Tate Modern.

Taru Elfving will discuss the act of witnessing and the address of the viewer in contemporary visual culture. Elfving with argue that when the viewer is addressed, or called to witness, the habitual positions and conventional modes of viewing are momentarily unsettled. Yet the viewer becomes simultaneously implicated through the act of witnessing, entangled with(in) the narratives and events witnessed, allowing for a rethinking of active spectatorship and the viewer’s sense of responsibility.

For those wishing to attend the following texts are suggested as contextual material:

Ovid, The Metamorphoses
Pierre Klossowski, Diana at her Bath/ The Women of Rome (Marsilio, 1998)
Jacques Lacan, ‘The Signification of the Phallus’ in Écrits (Routledge, 1977)
Benvenuto Bice, Concerning the Rites of Psychoanalysis, or The Villa of Mysteries (Routledge, 1994)
Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.Femaleman©_Meets_OncoMouse™, (Routledge, 1997)
Vivian Sobchack, The Address of the Eye. A Phenomenology of Film Experience (Princeton University Press, 1992)

Admission free but booking is essential as places are limited, to book please email: louisa.adam@gmail.com
www.haywardconversations.tumblr.com