философия / искусство

makedosun

Art History Lectures

10 minute audio piece summarising some of the thoughts on the eerie being developed by Justin Barton and me.

Notes On The Eerie

15 minute piece made for White Review's programme on Resonance FM, illustrating and extending ideas from Ghosts Of My Life

The Slow Cancellation Of The Future

Sara Zinger & Alda - My Mind (Preview)

Quick mix to explore some of the moods in the wake of the election defeat: initial shock then renewed militancy and sense of purpose ....

All the straws we clutched at have burst into flames

My Chest Was Full Of Eels, Pushing Through My Usual Skin (Descent into the Xen0cean)

We kickstart 2016 in a deep and dark manner with an EP from south of France coldest producer daWad. 

daWad is a French dude from Marseilles who basically likes it dark and bassy. And sexy…In a slightly pervy way. French quoi. 

A regular of Marseilles infamous club “La Dame Noir” (think Miami Vice meets Twin Peaks with a south of France accent) he brings us three cavernous pieces kicking off with “Catharsis”, a romantic / new wave chugger of a track built around singer Catherin voice. 
Slow, dreamy and sweaty “Catharsis” develops over a sexy bass line to reach a quasi pop, goosebumps inducing climax. Imagine 1987 Depeche Mode remixed by Scratch Massive and you’re close. 

Second track “Home21” speeds things up, and is most probably influenced by numerous peak time experiences at La Dame Noire. More techno inclined, the track is a relentless machine bleeping and screeching with minimalist synth lines surfing on a a bed of electro percussions and a New Orderish bass line. That’s probably why it’s coming out on Days Of Being Wild. 

3rd track “Land Of None” is reminiscent of industrial / EBM bands of the early 80’s, with its piercing analog snare and robotic groove. A more experimental piece of music, the approach here was to do something more dissonant and oppressive. Mission accomplished, we’d say it wouldn’t have been out of place on one of Trevor Jackson Metal Dance compilation. 

To close the EP we have Nhar remix of “Catharsis”. 
Another French producer that we like very much here at Days Of Being Wild, Nhar brings his unique blend of airy, spacious sounds to the title track. Melodic and trippy his remix is epic and intimate at the same time, a superb reinterpretation of daWad’s darkness. 
Here’s to a promising 2016!

DaWad Feat. Catherin - Catharsis

Diamond Veins (daWad & Mokic Remix)

French imprint Way Of House are back again with another on-point cut of sound, this time longstanding label artist Wielki, teams up with Marseille producer Sara Zinger. A merging of the fizzling electronic production of Wielki, with the darker techno traits of Sara Zinger, make for a dazzling EP.
The original of ‘Closer’ works electric fused 4/4 beats around a hypnotic vocals and encapsulating dark grooves, for a slightly downtempo chugger that will get the dancefloor moving. On the remix from first comes fellow French talent Cät Cät, who delivers a minimal and driven club focused cut, before Alda round things off.
Supports from :
Joris Voorn, Will Atkinson, Pezzner, Rick Maia, Steve Mac, Steve Horsemeat Disco, The Supermen Lovers, Mystic Bill, Olderic, Dennis Ferrer, Maceo Plex, Shall Ocin, Paco Osuna, Richie Hawtin, Marc Spence, Nick Warren...

Closer (Way Of House 23)

Closer (Original Mix)

by Terry Kurgan in conversation with Tamar Garb and Eva Hoffman

Terry Kurgan’s book begins with a family snapshot made by her Polish grandfather in 1939 on the eve of the war. Presenting this evocative image as a repository of multiple histories—public, private, domestic, familial and generational—she sets off on a series of meditations on photography that give us startling insights into how photographs work: what they conceal, how they mislead, what provocations they contain. Each essay takes up the thread of the story of her family’s epic journey across Europe as they flee—country by country—Nazi occupation, until they reach Cape Town, South Africa. But Kurgan takes detours, circles back, diverts attention elsewhere, enriching and also disrupting the narrative with digressions on the way Google has changed our relationship to photography, on her grandfather’s eloquent daily journals, on the shipboard flirtations of her fascinating grandmother, on vanity, on self representation, on loss and return, home and exile. Kurgan’s richly satisfying essays are part memoir, part travelogue, part analysis and they demonstrate her sophisticated understanding of a medium that has long engaged her as an artist.

Everyone is Present - Terry Kurgan in conversation with Tamar Garb and Eva Hoffman

by Anthony Gardner (University of Oxford), Magdalena Radomska (Art History Institute, Adam Mickiewicz University inPoznań), Marko Ilić (SSEES, UCL). Moderated by Maja and Reuben Fowkes (Post-socialist Art Centre, IAS, UCL)

This panel discussion brought together contributors to the special issue of Third Text on Actually Existing Artworlds of Socialism and guest respondents to debate the legacy of the socialist system for contemporary art and politics.

'Research into the institutional settings and practicalities of artistic production during the socialist period is giving rise to more nuanced accounts that complicate the distinctions made between the heroism of the neo-avant-garde and complicity of official artists, revealing an art system that was more variegated, flexible and generative than has been widely assumed. This panel examines the far-reaching implications of the understanding that artists from across the stylistic and ideological spectrum were productively imbricated in the calculated opacities and unlikely rapprochements of the ‘actually existing’ artworlds of socialism. Discussion of the specific traits of Eastern bloc artworlds and the key differences between art institutional landscapes across the Cold War divide opens onto the critical question as to what might be salvaged from the historical experience of art under socialism. Furthermore, if post-socialism is conceived not as a timeless category but as a specific historical period, then what are the prospects for the socialist project in the new social and political circumstances of unfolding global disorder?

IAS Book Launch: Another Artworld Was Possible - the Socialist Art System Revisited

Recorded live at Rinse France, june 26th 2019

Rinse France Podcast

Summer set Rag & Catherin, 260619

by Avril Alba, Yasmin Khan, and Tom Lawson. Chaired by Tamar Garb.

This panel discussion was jointly organised by the IAS and the German Historical Institute London (GHIL), and was part of the GHIL's Contested Histories seminar series (summer term 2019). Please find the programme here and the poster here.

This panel asked how do colonial history, the Second World War, and the Holocaust intersect? As Britain embarks on the creation of a National Holocaust Memorial, calls have been made for a memorial to and a museum of Britain’s historical involvement in slavery, its colonial past, and their legacies. Meanwhile, scholarship such as Michael Rothberg’s Multidirectional Memory has argued that Holocaust remembrance also has the potential to open up routes for commemorating other contested national pasts. This panel enabled a dialogue between scholars of the Holocaust, colonialism, and the British Empire to reflect on national and transnational legacies.

Multidirectional Memory? National Holocaust Memorials and (Post-)Colonial Legacies

by Chris Knight (Anthropology, UCL)and Jackie Walker. Chaired by Tamar Garb (IAS)

With the publication of ‘The Responsibility of Intellectuals’ half a century ago, Noam Chomsky burst onto the US political scene as a leading critic of the war in Vietnam. Privilege, he argues, brings with it the responsibility to tell the truth and expose lies, but our intellectual culture only pays lip-service to this ideal. The essay has been described as ‘the single most influential piece of anti-war literature’ of the Vietnam war period.

Since then, Chomsky has continued to equip a growing international audience with the facts and arguments needed to understand – and change – our world. According to The New York Times, Chomsky ‘may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet today.’

This book revisits ‘The Responsibility of Intellectuals’ half a century on. It includes six new essays written to celebrate Chomsky’s famous intervention and explore its relevance in today’s world. Nicholas Allott, Chris Knight, Milan Rai and Neil Smith have studied and written about Chomsky’s thought for many years, while Craig Murray and Jackie Walker describe the personal price they have paid for speaking out. The book finishes with Chomsky’s recollections of the background to the original publication of his essay, followed by extensive commentary from him on its 50th anniversary.

IAS Book Launch: The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Elisabeth Lebovici, art historian and art critic offers a response from the context of her book – ‘Being There – AIDS Activism at the end of Twentieth Century’. This is part of a Preview Seminar: Protest - Remembering Derek Jarman, that marked the 25th anniversary of Jarman’s death and reflects on What Jarman’s legacy is, as an artist and activist, today? Special guests come together to discuss the creative worlds, controversies and friendships that surround Jarman’s pioneering - interdisciplinary practice.

TRACK 7: Seminar Programme - Part Two / Protest, Outrage & Remembrance
Elisabeth Lebovici, art historian and art critic; Being There – AIDS Activism at the end of Twentieth Century.  Lebovici offers a wider perspective on the global struggles against HIV/AIDS, and its integration into art histories, discourses and practices - as an important framework to consider Jarman’s activist and artistic legacy.
About Speaker
Elisabeth Lebovici is an art historian and art critic, whose research, writings and lectures investigate the intersection of feminism, gender studies, queer politics, LGBTQ activism, and contemporary art. Among numerous publications, she is the author, of a new book Ce que le sida m’a fait: art et activisme à la fin du XXe siècle (What AIDS has done to me. Art and Activism at the End of the 20th Century) Zurich: JRP Ringier, 2017. The book restores the voices of friends in the fight against AIDS; articulating the “I” and the “we” of then and now; examining facts and affects little known to the French and European public; analysing the epidemic of representation which followed the emergence of AIDS: such is the agenda of this book, conceived by Lebovici as a “discourse on method” in which the personal is always political, and public and private spheres are closely intertwined. Engaged alongside French and American AIDS activists, Elisabeth Lebovici was a privileged observer, as an art historian and journalist, of the debates of the 1980s and 1990s.

Further Information
A range of iconic works were explored in the context of the highly anticipated IMMA exhibition, Derek Jarman, PROTEST! that opened on 15 November 2019. This significant retrospective offers the timely opportunity to explore many interdisciplinary aspects of Jarman’s life and work. Through Jarman’s work, the seminar traces key social, political and cultural shifts of the period 1960 – 1990s. Exploring many of the socially volatile topics that charged Jarman’s activities, his feelings of alienation, associations with the punk movement, and protests by intellectuals against the repressive totalitarian state of Thatcher England and Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act. Through the continuum of ‘Protest’ , topics of exploration include: Painting and Life; Memoir and Writing; the HIV / AIDS crisis; Stigma and Cultural memory; Protest and Personal Freedom and LGBTQ activism.

Speakers included: Sean Kissane (Curator, IMMA); Olivia Laing (author / writer, UK); Elisabeth Lebovici (art historian, critic, France): Dr Robert Mills (Professor, Medieval Studies, UCL, UK): Charlie Porter (writer, Turner Prize Juror, UK); Richard Porter (artist / Pilot Press, UK); Jon Savage (writer, broadcaster, UK); Dr Catherine Silverstone (Reader, Queen Mary University of London); Peter Tatchell (Human rights campaigner, UK), Karim White (Thames & Hudson Publishing, UK) and Tonie Walsh (LGBT rights activist, journalist, Ireland). Invited curators, artists, writers, educators and activists share their views on Jarman’s contemporary relevance and the precarious cycle of politics today.
This seminar took place on 14 November 2019 at IMMA. Return to the dedicated playlist ‘SEMINAR PROTEST - REMEMBERING DEREK JARMAN’, to listen back to other speaker’s responses and presentations.
Image Credits: Derek Jarman. Courtesy Basilisk Communications Ltd

SEMINAR: PROTEST - REMEMBERING DEREK JARMAN (7) / Elisabeth Lebovici

Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Author of Capitalist Realism (Zer0, 2009) and Ghosts Of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Zer0, 2014). Collaborator (with Justin Barton) on the audio-essays londonunderlondon (2005) and On Vanishing Land (2013). Member of Plan C. 

Notes On The Eerie

Mark Fisher 13