The first in a series of half-day conferences on writers who crossover between literature, science and
philosophy. J. G. Ballard is a prominent chronicler of the near future. He may also be thought of as an ‘imaginary scientist’. ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’ describes/depicts the ways in which scientific socio-technical systems structure
consciousness. Technology acts as a dis-inhibitor releasing aggressive and libidinal urges - and in their
wake enhanced possibilities of perversion. This conference will focus on Ballard’s role as a writer of ‘wrathful science’.

£10

An adaptation of the Theodore Dreiser novel. An American Tragedy whose anti-hero is the young up-and-comer George Eastman. While paying his dues at his uncle’s family business, Eastman becomes involved in a disastrous love triangle. George Stevens received numerous Academy Award nominations for both directing and producing A Place in the Sun. Accompanied by a series of short films.

£5/£4 Concessions. Tickets available from Ticket Web.

Are museums ready to play in the digital age? Rapid advances in technology are making the traditional audiotour increasingly redundant, and visitors are now offered sophisticated multimedia tours on PDAs, iPods and even mobile phones.

This symposium is for museum workers who want to know more about how the new generation of mobile devices can benefit their institutions. International museum professionals with in-depth experience in handheld program design, development and evaluation lead the day’s discussions. Case studies will include Tate’s own pioneering work in this area which includes a Bafta-award winning multimedia tour, mobile phone tours, a tour that allows visitors to create their own user-generated content, and the UK’s first iPod touch tour.

£150 (£80 concessions), booking required

Prominent and controversial philosopher John Gray, author of such acclaimed polemical works as Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, and prize-winning novelist Hari Kunzru (The Impressionist, My Revolutions) will participate in an evening of readings and discussions in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by Frank Gehry.

£5 / £4 Concessions.

An informal opportunity to debate ideas central to the making, curating and criticism of art in the expanded field of visual culture led by Suhail Malik, Course Leader Postgraduate Critical Studies, Goldsmiths College and hosted by Marquard Smith, Course Director, MA Art & Design History, Kingston University.

£7/5 concessions and Whitechapel Members.

“At the beginning of the twentieth century, to think of modern art was to think of modern French art” (Harrison and Wood: 2005). This claim is startling in comparison to the relative absence of contemporary French art in today’s international art scene. Recently, multiple initiatives serving to promote contemporary French art both within France and abroad mark a wave of renewed interest.

The French Connection: New Perspectives on French Contemporary Art Across Disciplines takes advantage of this unique cultural moment; it provides an international forum for discussion across disciplines by bringing together artists, art historians, critics, philosophers, sociologists, curators, and filmmakers.

Fees range from £5 to £50 depending on whether attendance is for the entire conference or for day attendance only.

Deadline for Registrations: 18 July.

Marshall Berman rose to prominence with All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity, a prophetic book which over the last quarter century has grown to seem increasingly relevant to the faster, more anxious and ironic times in which we live. In this lecture, he discusses the concept of modern living.

£10 / £5 Concessions.

In his startling new film Car Bomb, ex-CIA agent Robert Baer, whose life was depicted by George Clooney in the Oscar-winning film Syriana, uncovers the history of a weapon that now impacts heavily on global politics. With footage of car bomb attacks and interviews with car bombers, Baer reveals how the century of the car turned into the century of the car bomb. For this exclusive screening, Baer will be visiting the ICA to introduce the film, and take questions on it afterwards.

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

Immortalized by the finest artists, composers and novelists of the day, Vauxhall Gardens opened in 1661 providing Georgian and Victorian Londoners with a summertime retreat, hear music, admire paintings, promenade, drink and seduce. Tourists wondered at the happy confusion of classes and media, and similar resorts sprang up around the country and across the globe.

Vauxhall Revisited will consider the phenomenon of the pleasure garden in all its aspects: design, art, music, fashion, gender and class.

£80 (£60 concessions), booking required.

A discussion with Alan Moore, a seminal figure in the graphic books genre. Together with his wife and collaborator Melinda Gebbie, Alan Moore discusses Lost Girls, a cult work which combines a soft-edged drawing style with explicit sexual content. Their work questions self-censorship, style and the interplay between the two.This visual presentation is chaired by Roz Kaveney.

£9 / £4.50 Concessions.

This conference, organised on the occasion of the exhibition Richard Prince: Continuation, brings together artists, curators and writers to examine its uniquely personal installation and literary collection from popular culture and pulp fiction.

Speakers include: Nate Lowman, artist and curator living in Brooklyn, New York; Richard Meyer, Associate Professor, University of Southern California; Collier Schorr, artist, photographer and former assistant to Richard Prince; Nancy Spector, Chief Curator, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Gilda Williams, Artforum London correspondent and Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.

£10 / £8 Concessions.

A series of talks about or inspired by Soundings From The Estuary, an ongoing project that is inspired by the Estuary’s industrial, architectural, and maritime traces as well as the present threat to the existing terrain.

Speakers Include:
Michael Edwards (Bartlett School of Architecture) - a Professor of Planning who has written extensively on urban regeneration and economic development.
Patrick Wright (Nottingham Trent University) - a Writer, Broadcaster, Cultural Critic and Consortium faculty member.
David Hughes - a Local Historian who lives on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent.
Artists Frank Watson and Germander Speedwell will also introduce their work.

To reserve a free ticket, e-mail info@soundingsfromtheestuary.com

An event celebrating The Hayward’s 40th anniversary. The discussion brings together a distinguished group of artists and architects including Zaha Hadid, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Dennis Crompton, one of the group of architects who designed The Hayward.

Taking the The Hayward and its surrounding environment as a point of reference, the panel discuss and debate different, but often concurrent, approaches to designing gallery architecture: the great modernist tradition of building-as-machine and idea of gallery as sculptural icon.

£8 / £4 Concessions.

What role do jokes play in the world of science? Do they exclude outsiders or raise issues? What are snouters?

Following in the Grant Museum’s series of events looking at the lighter side of science, we look into the way in which each scientific discipline has inside jokes.Dr Joe Cain, historian of biology at UCL, will bridge the gap between science and comedy to tell the amusing story behind one of biology’s most favourite practical jokes, the ’snouters’. He will then consider some of the social functions these pranks have in our communities. Following the talk the audience is invited for a glass of wine at a private view of the Museum. This talk is suitable for adults.

Richard Sennett joins sculptor Grayson Perry, tenor Ian Bostridge and writer Marina Warner to discuss the value and importance of craftsmanship in the digital age. With his keen social observation, Sennett’s book The Craftsman argues that perfecting skills and doing a job well - from learning the piano to rearing children - is an essential urge that we all share, and its erosion in contemporary life is a social ill. Our panel discuss these issues with regard to their own work and then take questions from the audience.

£9 / £4.50 Concessions.

The Long Table on Performing Rights is an invitation to explore the role of performance in communicating human rights issues; to look at the new relationships between art and activism; and to debate the responsibilities of artists, organisers, activists and audiences in the understanding, enactment and sustenance of human rights. Conceived by artist Lois Weaver, The Long Table is inspired by Marleen Gorris’ film Antonia’s Line, in which a dinner table grows longer and longer as Antonia’s family welcomes outsiders and accommodates eccentricity. Everyone is welcome to come to the table, ask questions, make statements, leave comments, or simply sit, listen and watch.

£5 / £2.50 Concessions.

Mark Godfrey, Curator at Tate Modern, investigates how American abstract artists and architects from the 50s to the present day have negotiated Holocaust memory without ever representing the Holocaust directly. Through close consideration of work by artists and architects such as Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Susan Hiller, Beryl Korot, Louis Kahn and Peter Eisenmam, Godfrey proposes new possibilities for reading abstraction.

£8/6 concessions and Whitechapel Members.

How can cultural information from one part of the world be shared with another? How is this knowledge relayed through writing or performance? And what part does the traveller play in the telling?

This reflection on Lift’s curatorial approach and its decision to devolve programming power to a network of international and national associates is chaired by Ruth Holdsworth, currently working with University of Bristol and Arnolfini on curating risk. The discussion focuses on how individuals speak for and on behalf of the collective. Speakers include Lift Director Angharad Wynne-Jones, Lift International Associates Lemi Ponifasio (New Zealand) and Roma Patel (UK), and Paolo Favero (University College, London), a social anthropologist interested in tourism and cultural mediation.

Please note: this free event requires a ticket.

Friedrich Kittler has been hailed as the ‘Derrida of the digital age’ and his work is indispensable to anyone thinking about technoculture across the fields of art, design, technology and science. This landmark event brings one of today’s foremost philosophers of media to Tate Modern for an unmissable opportunity to examine the relationship between culture and technology with a range of leading thinkers and practitioners. For anyone interested in our complex interactions with the technologies that surround us this event is essential, while for those unfamiliar with Kittler it presents an opportunity to discover the work of the leading figure in the flourishing area of German media theory.

Media Matters is a two-day series of events that comprises:
•A keynote lecture by Friedrich Kittler
•A symposium featuring leading thinkers in the fields of cultural theory, film and the arts
•’Gramophones, Films, Typewriters’: audio, video and text works curated by Seth Kim-Cohen

In collaboration with the London Consortium

£32 (£24 concessions), booking required

This two and a half day conference is intended to be inter-disciplinary and inter-practice, bringing policy makers and practitioners to the table in order to enable an exchange between those designing and implementing post-crisis interventions and those researching these situations. Aside from paper presentations the conference will include: a photography exhibition, documentary evening and project presentations. The inaugural lecture will be given by Paddy Ashdown on the evening of 25 June.

£20 / £10 Concessions.