The London Consortium Presents:

Graduate Conference - University of London, Birkbeck: April 29 -30, 2010

Abstracts are invited for papers exploring the following issues from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.

This conference explores the interplay between film, identity and history in the context of crisis and catastrophe. We approach the topic through analysis of particular films as well as through a theoretical consideration of the work of film as medium. It is not so much the crisis or the catastrophe itself, but the cultural function of its filmic representation in engaging collective memory, history and identity that draws our attention. Crisis and catastrophes serve as a narrative strategy and mode of representation in order to make history accessible. As films reconstruct the past according to present readings of historic events, the reworking of catastrophes and crisis in audiovisual media oftentimes serves to legitimate current collectives. This generates questions about the exclusion of certain visions of the past and about the possibility to interrogate dominating historical narratives through audiovisual media, and particularly through film. Indeed, interrogating the filmic affinity for catastrophes and crisis requires attention to the audiovisual media as such, articulating the correlation between the logic of collective identity building and the inherent logic of media and genre, the relation between transnational media distribution and local reception, and the possibilities of medial resistance.

Papers are invited to consider these issues, but also other possible approaches, encouraging submissions from a range of disciplines in the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences. Speakers should be prepared for a 20-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of questions.

Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2010
Please send a 250-word abstract, as well as a brief biography (100 words) to relivingdisaster@googlemail.com. Proposals should list paper title, name, contact details, institutional affiliation and any necessary audiovisual requirements.

Successful applicants will be notified by March 1, 2010.

Please note there is a conference registration fee of £30.00, which will be due by March 15 2010. We regret that travel funding for conference participants is not available at this time.

For more information:
Website: http://www.relivingdisaster.wordpress.com
Email: relivingdisaster@googlemail.com

INTERIOR TRACES: A NEW RADIO DRAMA AND PERFORMANCE PROJECT EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF BRAIN IMAGING ON SOCIETY

When the first neurologists started mapping the brain’s functions, they profoundly changed our understanding of its relation to the mind. Today, imaging technologies allow us to observe the structures of the living brain in incredible detail, whilst the future promises an ever-greater appreciation of how our brain, environment, and genes interact to produce behaviour and personality.

Interior Traces is a six-part radio drama, video, performance and debate that looks at how our images and imaginings of the brain have radically changed medicine, law, ethics and our sense of self, and might continue to do so. Spanning one hundred and thirty years, it examines the possible lives of two characters had they lived in Britain in 1906, 2009, and 2030.

The episodes are accompanied by specially-commissioned video works and musical scores and will be performed at three live events in London in May, at Cheltenham Science Festival and broadcast on Resonance 104fm. Each event will be followed by panel discussions with experts from the fields of neuroscience, law, neuroethics and the history of medicine. All events are free.

For full details and booking information see www.interiortraces.com

The current editors of Static, the online journal of the London Consortium, invite you to the launch of Static 8, the theme of which is: General. We will be celebrating with a special screening of Buster Keaton’s acclaimed 1927 film The General, with Neil Brand providing live piano accompaniment. The screening will be followed by a drinks reception and will take place on 

Friday 30th January, at 6pm. In the Birkbeck Cinema:  

41 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury Birkbeck, University of London, London, WC1H 0PD

We hope to see as many of you as possible there; however, as space is limited, please RSVP to staticgeneral@gmail.com, quoting “RSVP” in the subject line.  

Static 8: General features contributions from Consortium students both present and past. Cécile Guédon’s ‘Abstract Shadows: An Aesthetics of the General’  considers the polarity between the particular and the general in modernism; Matt Taunton examines the responses of Georg Lukács and Theodor Adorno to Samuel Beckett in terms of the question of generalizable experience; and Christien Garcia investigates problems of categorization and community posed in and around queer theory. Other articles include an interview with AA Bronson of the artistic trio General Idea and a consideration of Rem Koolhaus’s concept of the ‘generic city’.  

Look for Static 8: General online in February.

www.static.londonconsortium.com

Figuring Landscapes is a remarkable collection of moving image works that has grown from the background of the political and cultural history that links the UK and Australia. Presented internationally as a series of screening programmes, the works in Figuring Landscapes address questions of ecological survival, post-industrialism, gender, the touristic gaze, and uniquely in Australia, the social, political and cultural status of Indigenous people in a post-colonial society.

Exhibitions
25 - 30 November 2008: Figuring Landscapes premieres at ArtSway in the New Forest;
Tuesday 25 November at 7pm: Gallery talk with Steven Ball and Catherine Elwes
ArtSway, Station Road, Sway, Hampshire SO41 6BA
tel: +44(0)1590 682260
email: mail@artsway.org.uk

Figuring Landscapes screens across the weekend of 6 February 2009 at Tate Modern, London then tours the UK through 2009 to Showroom, Sheffield; Chapter Arts, Cardiff; Cinematheque, Brighton; Bureau, Salford; Dundee Contemporary Arts; Vivid, Birmingham; FACT, Liverpool; Glimmer, Hull. Full details to be confirmed. Australian venues will be announced in 2009.

Catalogue
Figuring Landscapes is complemented by a major catalogue edited by London Consortium PhD student Eu Jin Chua, Catherine Elwes and Steven Ball. It is handsomely designed by Oscar Bauer and Ewan Robertson and contains extensive programme notes, artists’ biographies and colour images. A collection of reflective and contextualising essays are included by members of
the curatorial team and academic commentators. Professor Malcolm Andrews, Eu Jin Chua, Professor Catherine Elwes and Steven Ball, Dr. Stan Frankland, Professor Ross Gibson, Dr. Eric Hirsch, Professor Pat Hoffie and Dr. Danni Zuvela. Selection of extracts from the catalogue essays.

Artists
Vernon Ah Kee, Steven Ball, George Barber, Anna Cady, Peter Callas, Nick Collins, John Conomos, Roz Cran, Daniel Crooks, Sergio Cruz, Sofia Dahlgren, Dalziel + Scullion, Destiny Deacon, Sarah Dobai, Ann Donnelly, Jeff Doring, Catherine Elwes, Merilyn Fairskye, Allan Giddy, John Gillies, Shaun Gladwell, Dryden Goodwin, Tony Hill, Hollington & Kyprianou, Tammy Honey, Hobart Hughes, John Hughes & Peter Kennedy, Matt Hulse, Esther Johnson, Lyndal Jones, Andrew Kötting, Sandra Landolt, Mike Latto, Brendan Lee, Eugenia Lim, David Mackenzie, Mike Marshall, Jo Millett, Scott Morrison, Matthew Murdoch, Susan Norrie & David Mackenzie, David Perry, Patricia Piccinini, Bronwyn Platten, William Raban, Dominic Redfern, Emily Richardson, Ben Rivers, Semiconductor, Dan Shipsides, Genevieve Staines, Margaret Tait, David Theobald, Warwick Thornton & Darren Dale, Hugh Watt.

Figuring Landscapes Team
Figuring Landscapes devised by Catherine Elwes & Steven Ball
Australian Curators: Professor Pat Hoffie & Dr. Danni Zuvela.
UK Curators: Professor Catherine Elwes & Steven Ball.
Programme Advisors: Peter Bonnell, Eu Jin Chua, Stuart Comer, Harry Darby, Dr. Stan Frankland, Dr. Eric Hirsch, Mark Segal.

For full information visit: www.figuringlandscapes.co.uk

Betting on Shorts presents animations, narrative, documentaries, artist films from around the world, in response to our theme Money Money Money.

21 November 2008 ICA, Cinema 1, The Mall, SW1Y 5AH, 6.30pm

Betting on Shorts (BoSs): More than a Eurovision of Shortfilm is an international short film contest with simultaneous screenings in 13 cities all over Europe. In its fourth year at the ICA, BoSs presents this year’s programme of short films on the theme Money Money Money.

It will be screened simultaneously at the ICA in London and in Athens, Barcelona, Bucharest, Istanbul, Maribor, Naples, Novi Sad, Paris, Poznan, Thessaloniki, Stockholm and Wiesbaden.

The films are judged in each venue by a local jury and the overall favourite is awarded a prize. After the screening we’ll convene in the ICA bar and set up an audiolink to all participating venues to find out which film has won in which city.The film that has won in most is awarded fame, glory and £500 in cash!

Before the show begins the audience will be asked to bet on who will be the grand winner. Check out clips of the films in the ICA bar or on the Betting on Shorts website from 15 November.

Bet on the right film and win an ICA Membership or cinema tickets. Audience winners will be announced in the bar as soon as all the juries’ decisions are in. Join us for music and celebrations in the bar from 8pm till late.

Sponsored by The London Consortium, Minimatik, Nextnode.net and Plaisio.

Curated by Ricarda Vidal, Irini Marinaki and Konstantinos Stefanis.www.bettingonshorts.comThe London Jury includes: Steven Connor (London Consortium), Philip Ilson (London Short Film Festival), Kathy Noble (Tate Modern), Tejinder Jouhal (ICA), Caren Willig (BFI). Tickets: £8 / £7 Concessions / £6 ICA Members. Book here.

The University of Hertfordshire’s School of Art and Design is running a conference examining the concept of luxury. The conference, entitled “In Pursuit of Luxury: commercial and academic perspectives on luxury”, intends to expand the parameters of the debate around the concepts of luxury to provide a refreshing context to construe the familiar debates surrounding the subject.

By discussing the history of luxury against contemporary issues, the event seeks to focus on a range of issues. These include: what do we understand by the term luxury and can it or should it be applied to luxury branded goods today? Does contemporary branding allow such goods to remain luxurious, even though they have been mass-produced? What do the terms such as value, consumerism, fashion, taste or connoisseurship really tell us about modern spending habits?

The conference will be held on Friday 19th June 2009 at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in Central London. Keynote speakers are confirmed as Emanuel Ungaro and Professor Chris Berry. Registration is open from Monday 26th January 2009.

A call for papers has opened with a deadline of Monday 15th December; the conference organisers invite submissions under a range of broad headings. Possible strands may include:
• Sociology and luxury
• Luxury and emerging economies
• Ethics, politics and luxury
• Luxury and craft
• Luxury and popular culture
• Luxury, globalisation and branding
• Luxury and design
• Luxury and fashion
• Luxury and jewellery
• Luxury and the history of consumption

For more information please see the following websites:
http://www.inpursuitofluxury.com/
http://www.herts.ac.uk/events/In-Pursuit-of-Luxury-Commercial-and-Academic-Perspectives-of-Luxury.cfm

Saturday 18 October - Sunday 19 October

Manifesto Marathon Day 1:
Saturday 18 October, 12 noon – 9.40 pm

Manifesto Marathon Day 2:
Saturday 19 October, 10 am – 7 pm

London Consortium student Lee Scrivner will perform his new manifesto The Sound Moneyfesto at the Serpentine Gallery’s Manifesto Marathon on Saturday, October 18 at 8:00 pm.

Click here to see the full schedule of participants

Two day ticket £35
One day ticket £20 full price £15 concessions

Please note that the Manifesto Marathon takes place inside the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion so access to the interior of the Pavilion will be restricted for visitors not attending the event.
Manifesto Marathon, the third in the Serpentine Gallery’s acclaimed series of Marathon events, takes place in the closing weekend of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008, designed by Frank Gehry. Manifesto Marathon comes at a time when artists are working less in formal groups and defined artistic movements. The Marathon showcases a new generation of artists alongside practitioners from the worlds of literature, design, science, philosophy, music and film who are returning to the historical notion of the manifesto. The Manifesto Marathon draws on the Serpentine Gallery’s close proximity to Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, which has been used as a platform by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell and William Morris, among many others.

Avant-garde pioneer Yoko Ono, Gilbert & George, who famously proclaimed ‘Art for All’, Ben Vautier, key protagonist of the Fluxus movement, and legendary artist Elaine Sturtevant will join a new generation of artists such as Terence Koh, Hilary Koob-Sassen and Athanasios Argianas to present their manifestos for the 21st century in this two-day ‘futurological congress’ in the park. The Marathon will also feature architects, including Andrea Branzi, Peter Cook, Charles Jencks, Claude Parent and Rem Koolhaas; scientists, writers and historians including the eminent Eric Hobsbawm; film directors including the legendary Agnès Varda; and philosophers, designers, and musicians including musical revolutionary Brian Eno. Vivienne Westwood’s manifesto Active Resistance to Propaganda will be presented by 26 performers and Marina Abramovi? will be accompanied by 14 performers.

This year’s Manifesto Marathon is the third in a series of Marathon events conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Gallery Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects and follows the 2006 24-Hour Interview Marathon, created with Rem Koolhaas, and the 2007 Experiment Marathon, created with Olafur Eliasson. For more information about past Marathons click here.

Tickets available from: Ticket Web 08700 600100
www.ticketweb.co.uk or the Gallery lobby desk.

London Consortium director Steve Connor and student Lee Scrivner will be contributing lectures to Resonance FM’s Free University of the Airwaves which runs from 18-22 August 2008. Steve Connor’s ‘Taking to the Air’ will be broadcast on 104.4FM or online at on Monday 18 August at 10.00 and 19.00. Lee Scrivner’s ‘Aphorism’ will be broadcast at 12 noon on Friday 22 August.

Static, the online journal of the London Consortium, launches a call for submissions for two forthcoming issues, Static 7 Catastrophe and Static 8 General http://static.londonconsortium.com/

STATIC 7 CATASTROPHE

“What happened, has not happened: thus spoke patience, that the end might not be hurried.” Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of The Disaster
The catastrophe takes care of everything: from Greek tragedy to sci-fi, from ethics to (an)aesthetics, from architecture to game theory, from opera to snuff. Static 7 aims to reconstruct the contradictions and oppositions of the catastrophic narrative, which is peripheral yet at the centre of all things, consigned to the past and always to be reinstated. Catastrophe is both a central cultural narrative and the point at which all narratives and cultures implode and disappear. The destructive topos par excellence, it has also been instrumental in the development of many of the concepts and categories, from psychology to history, ethics to aesthetics. Static 7 aims to pace the epistemic disaster zone, reading its debris through contributions which explore the notion of catastrophe in literature, architecture, art, politics, science, music and economics, drawing on sources as diverse as Aeschylus and Virilio, Kant and Beckett, financial risk analysis and nuclear reactor meltdown.

The submission deadline is 1 April 2008. Please send your queries and submissions to mailto:static.catastrophe@googlemail.com

Static 7 Catastrophe welcomes diverse formats of submission. Please contact the editors, Chrystalleni Louidzou, Jonathan McKay and Roger Orwell, regarding technical details before submitting your work. Submission guidelines and further information about Static can be found at www.static.londonconsortium.com.

STATIC 8 GENERAL

The general gender [Obs.] = The common sort (of people). (OED) Hamlet.

The general constitutes both the site of a universal quality as well as a collection of the particular. As an idea or shape, it is commonly understood as an inferior mode of description yet the general, uneasily allied with both despotism and democracy, wields an ambiguous authority of its own. Static 8 sets out to probe the power and authority of the general while recognizing the potential for open possibilities that lie in what might be referred to as the undefined, indistinct or even unexceptional. ‘Never alone / Did the King sigh,’ says Shakespeare’s Claudius ‘but with a general groan’ (Hamlet, III, 3). The King, like the military general, is someone who has overall authority but whose supremacy rests dubiously on the plurality and willed consensus of those whose voices are contained in his command. By what means does the general give form? Does it unite, highlight, corrode or simply blur the points of distinction? And what role does it have in the ethos of liberty and coercion? Bearing on the condition of the interdisciplinary in its implicit invocation of ‘General Studies,’ this issue of Static invites contributors to address the possibilities and paradoxes embodied by the general.

The submission deadline is 1 June 2008. Please send your queries and submissions to mailto:staticgeneral@gmail.com

Static 8 General welcomes diverse formats of submission. Please contact the editors, Christien Garcia and Alice Gavin, regarding technical details before submitting your work. Submission guidelines and further information about Static can be found at www.static.londonconsortium.com.

Static is the online journal of the London Consortium, a collaboration between the Architectural Association, Birkbeck College, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Science Museum, and Tate.

See www.londonconsortium.com for more information.

Betting on Shorts invited filmmakers from across the world to respond to our theme “Mad or Bad”:
“Break the conventions, break free, break your heart or someone else’s, take drugs, become a criminal, become a victim, wherever your fancies take you – are you mad, or are you just bad? You could look at trick or treat, crime and punishment, genetics and eugenics, or: simply consider Michael Jackson.”

Of almost 400 submissions a programme of 18 runners-up and 16 finalists have now been selected.

The finalists will be screened simultaneously in 10 cities and will be judged by a panel of local film-curators, directors, actors or cultural critics in each city. The overall favourite is awarded a prize.

Before the show begins the audience can bet on who will be the grand winner.

From 21 November clips of the films are streamed on the Betting on Shorts website www.bettingonshorts.com Background info, blurbs and stills are available 30 minutes before the screening. Those who have bet on the right film can win a prizes like annual memberships, DVDs, books or cinema tickets.

The winners will be announced in the bar as soon as all the juries’ decisions are in.

Runners-up will be screened
21 November in London: ICA, Cinema 2, 8.45 pm
28 November in Barcelona: Cineclub VoidZelig, 9.30 pm

Preview of the 16 finalists
23 November, Barcelona at l’Alternativa Independent Film Festival: Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona, 10.00pm

The grand finale
28 November 2007 ICA, Cinema 1, 8.30pm
And simultaneously in Athens, Berlin, Istanbul, Maribor, Novi Sad, Paris, Poznan and Rostov-on-Don

Betting on Shorts is supported by the London Consortium.

‘A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.’
- Fanny Burney, Camilla (1796)

The London Consortium invites contributions for the sixth issue of Static (to be published in December 2007), on the theme of ALARM.

Static: ALARM is devoted to the sound, the signal, and the response: the ways in which sounds have triggered gatherings and scatterings; the connections between signs and dangers real and imagined. As the rolling “r” of “alarum” has slackened to the lulling sound of “alarm”, the ringing of alarms has become part of our aural wallpaper. Alarm is hard-wired into us – but has the constant clanging and wailing of alarms, the repeated sounding of “wake-up calls”, induced a collective state of numbing tinnitus?

We welcome all kinds of contributions, and are particularly keen to include sound art, which will be published online. Please contact the editors at static6_alarm@yahoo.com to discuss the format and other technical details before submitting your work.

Submission guidelines and further information about Static can be found on the website: www.static.londonconsortium.com. The deadline for submissions is Monday 1st October 2007.

The editors of Static: ALARM are Thomas Mansell, Richard Osborne, and Katherine Hunt.

The Cine Club is a series of film screenings organised by PhD students around a specific theme. This year the Club is exporing the theme of ‘the still image in moving pictures’. The screenings take place fortnightly in the ICA cinemas and are followed by discussion. Ideas for background reading are suggested and also discussed. The screenings are open to all Consortium and Birkbeck postgrad students.

Entry is free. All screenings take place in ICA cinema 2. Please arrive early as the films will begin promptly at the advertised time.

Next screening: Thursday 5th July, After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1998)

Read the rest of this entry »

Betting on Shorts is a film contest with a difference, as it requires audience members to place bets on which film will be the winner. Established in 2005 as part of activities for the London Consortium’s European Summer School, Betting on Shorts has taken-on a life of its own. 2007 will see the third annual contest, and this time it’s taking place across Europe and beyond - a Eurovision of short film. This year’s theme is ‘Mad or Bad?’

See the Call for Submissions here..

Read the rest of this entry »

London Consortium Research Fellow, Hilary Powell’s film The Games is being screened twice during Architecture Week. The film is a 15 minute surreal exploration of the current landscape of the area in East London now being developed for the 2012 Olympics.

The film can be seen and discussed at both these events:

London Architecture Week event, Wednesday 20th June

Space Studios / Museum of London event, Olympic Artists, Saturday 23rd June

Static (the London Consortium’s online journal, http://static.londonconsortium.com/ ISSN 1754-5374) is inviting teams of guest editors to submit proposals for the sixth and subsequent issues. Static issue 05 is due to come out at the beginning of July 2007. Static issue 06 will be expected to go online in November 2007.

Guest editors will be responsible for circulating call for papers, editing submissions and putting the issue online. Assistance on all stages will be provided by the current members of Static’s editorial board (Prof. Steven Connor, Irini Marinaki, Martine Rouleau, Konstantinos Stefanis, Vlad Strukov and Matthew Taunton)

Please, send your proposals (theme, possible format, or any other information relevant to your project) of no longer than 250 words to static@londonconsortium.com.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 22nd of June 2007.

Please note that this is open to London Consortium’s students, alumni and faculty only.

Tate Modern, 19.30, Sunday 27 May - 15.00, Monday 28 May 2007

To mark the twentieth anniversary of his death in 1987, Andy Warhol’s (1928-87) first ever film, Sleep 1963, is screened throughout the night, accompanied by the legendary musical performance that inspired it. The five and a half-hour film will be looped to provide over eighteen hours of continuous viewing, and is a meditative study of the poet John Giorno asleep in his apartment. Warhol was inspired to complete the film with a new repetitive editing structure after attending the writer and composer John Cage’s (1912-92) historic 1963 performance at the Pocket Theatre in New York of the French composer Erik Satie’s (1866-1925) epic repetitive work for piano, Vexations, 1893. This transfixing event at Tate Modern brings together two artistic landmarks from a momentous year, and will be a contemplation on stillness, repetition, time and death.

This landmark event is accompanied by a panel discussion about the relationships between Warhol, Cage and Satie.

The concept for the event came from London Consortium PhD student Lauren A Wright, and, with support from the Consortium, has been developed by her in collaboration with Tate Modern as part of the Tate Long Weekend. Full details and booking information are available on the Tate website.

The London Consortium issues an open invitation to anyone who would like to drop-in at an informal information evening, where we will discuss ‘The Possibilities of Multi-Disciplinary Study’.

Tuesday 15th May 2007
6.00-7.30pm

The Council Room, Birkbeck College main building
Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX

From 6pm, faculty and students of the Consortium will be available to discuss our programmes and the potential that multi-disciplinary study might have for your own areas of interest.

At 6.30pm, Professor Steven Connor, Academic Director, will give a short presentation.

Wine and soft drinks will be available throughout.

Terrence Malick’s 1978 film Days of Heaven will be screened in ICA Cinema 2 on Thursday 19th April at 2pm.

It is hoped the screening and following discussion will lead to the creation of a London Consortium reading/viewing group on the poetry of Wallace Stevens and the cinema of Terrence Malick.

The screening and the reading group will be open to Consortium and Birkbeck postgrad students.

A skim through Stevens’ Harmonium would be good preparation for the screening, especially the poems “O, Florida, Venereal Soil”, “The Comedian as the Letter C” and “Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb”.

Further reading: Simon Critchley, Things Merely Are (2005).

Nec manet sui similis res: omnia migrant, omnia commutat natura et vertere cogit
(Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, V. 828)

The fifth issue of Static invites critical and creative contributions on the theme of Metamorphosis. The mutability of things is a theme that has gripped people from the ancient world to the modern. This issue of Static will focus closely on the changing forms in which change of form is thought about and represented in literature, myth, and arts. Metamorphosis is the vehicle by which different cultures think concretely about the relations between form and time, fusion and undoing, the singular and the multiple, the absolute and the intermediary. Among other things, metamorphosis refers to the transformations of the body effected in body practices, cosmetic, ritual and sexual.

We invite all kinds of submissions but we particularly welcome contributions in non-textual media, be it photographic images, art projects, animation, short film, or other media.
Please contact the editorial team at static5_meta@yahoo.com in the first instance to discuss the format and other technical details before you submit your work.

The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2007.

Editorial Team
Prof. Colin MacCabe, Prof. Steven Connor, Irini Marinaki, Martine Rouleau, Konstantinos Stefanis, Vlad Strukov

About Static
Static is the London Consortium’s web resource. Edited and managed by Consortium students, it aims to presents contributions from an international team of academics, artists and cultural practitioners.
To see previous issues go to www.static.londonconsortium.com