The first ever in-depth discussion between two quintessentially British pioneers of graphic novels: Raymond Briggs and Bryan Talbot. Tonight Briggs, whose work includes The Snowman, When The Wind Blows and Ethel & Ernest, and Talbot, author of Luther Arkwright and Alice in Sunderland, will discuss their work and mark new editions of Briggs’ Gentleman Jim and Talbot’s The Tale of One Bad Rat. Chaired by Rachel Cooke of The Observer.

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

A series exploring the structures of lived experience and modes of human existence. What can be learned from other people’s experience of things we rarely think about? The seventh event in the series focuses on string: tying, knotting, measuring, adorning, playing. What are the origins of the modest string? Does an illlusionist use string the same way a musician does? Does a physicist think of string in similar terms to an artist?

Speakers include Cornelia Parker, visual artist; Mark Messenger, head of strings at the Royal Academy of Music; David S Berman, reader in theoretical physics at Queen Mary University. Chair: Martine Rouleau, London Consortium.

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

The sound-world of a piece is a vital part of an artist’s vision for a new work, but how do choreographers choose their music and how do they use it in their work?
Join renowned choreographers Richard Alston and Charlotte Vincent as they reveal something of their very different working methods and give insights into their own individual relationships with music and movement. Facilitated by dance author and archivist Dick McCaw.

With performers from Richard Alston Dance Company and Vincent Dance Theatre.

£7 / Limited Concessions

Dr De Cataldo is a Criminal Court Judge in Rome and a well-known writer of crime fiction. He is the author of ‘Romanzo Criminale’ and co-screenwriter of Michele Placido’s internationally acclaimed film of the same name. This event will begin with a screening of the film followed by a discussion and drinks reception.

Entry is free, but numbers are limited - if you would like to attend please contact Leila Dajani: l.dajani@law.bbk.ac.uk

This symposium brings together a stellar cast of international speakers to explore Mark Rothko’s late work in the context of the 1960s, a time of historic turmoil when the practice of painting was under increasing attack. The speakers explore key issues such as series and seriality, and the existentialist endeavour of Rothko’s late paintings against the rise of Pop art, minimalism and Conceptual art, offering new ways of thinking about one of the most significant artists of the last century.

£20 (£15 concessions), booking recommended

During the first Fluxus event at the ICA, 1962’s Festival of Misfits, it is reported that artist Robin Page kicked his electric guitar off the stage and down the stairs of the Dover Street building and into the street. The July 1966 press release for The Destruction in Art Symposium (at the Africa Centre) announced that: “The main objective of DIAS was to focus attention on the element of destruction in Happenings and other art forms, and to relate this destruction in society.” In January 1964 the ICA was given over to the theme of Violence, while that November Cornelius Cardew warned that “Experimental music is the most DEADLY form of TOTAL ABSTRACTION ever devised… INSTANTLY you will see how to DESTROY ILLUSION AND DRAW ATTENTION TO THE FACTS.”

Can curators and artists draw attention to the ‘facts’ of an often violent world through extreme methods of curation? Is it possible through extreme methods and content to avoid mere spectacle within the gallery? Speakers: artists Stuart Brisley and Mark McGowan; Lauren Wright, curator Long Weekend, Tate Modern; Yasmin Canvin, curator AfterShock: Conflict, Violence and Resolution in Contemporary Art, Sainsbury Centre; artist and novelist Stuart Home. Chair: Dr Dorothée Brill, lecturer and curator.

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

The internationally acclaimed critic, artist and novelist John Berger is here to talk about his new book, the Booker-longlisted From A To X: A Story in Letters, and about the connection between writing and political resistance. Berger will be in conversation with Geoff Dyer, critic and author of The Ongoing Moment and But Beautiful.

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

The skeletons in the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition may be hundreds of years old but they have the power to stir living feelings in many of us. How does London feel about its dead bodies? Body-snatching in the 1800s had a huge influence on the development of modern medicine. But what rights does a dead body have today, and how do these rights change over time?

What’s the difference between a skeleton that is 99 years old and a skeleton that is 100 years old? Should we be using the dead at all? What limitations, rules and regulations are in place to mark our use? Join our speakers for a discussion of regulatory, philosophical and historical perspectives on death and dying in the capital.

Free entry (Booking required).

Professor David Crystal, one of the world’s foremost experts on language, presents three of his most popular lectures in this special one day event taking place of Thursday 16th October in The Shaw Theatre.

Lecture 1- The Future of Englishes. English is now a global language, but what are the consequences of this newfound status for the future development of the language? Lecture 2 - Language death: writing the obituary of languages? David Crystal reviews the way languages are dying, asks why and what can be done. Lecture 3 - Internet linguistics. What influence is the interet having on language, and what is happening to language as it comes to be used on the Internet?

£10 / £5 concessions

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.