After a destabilizing yet very motivating 3-day workshop titled Learn To ‘Write’ A Novel In Less Than A Week, Plagiarism Really Is Necessary!, London-based author Stewart Home gave an amazing insight into his decades-long practice on the fringes of art.

Stewart is an artist, filmmaker, writer and cultural activist living in London. His art anti-art practices have given rise to seven published books of solo cultural commentary and four edited anthologies, alongside fifteen novels as well as poetry and short story collections. Since 1980 Home has developed a body of ongoing performance, prank and film works, exhibiting at everywhere from City Racing in London to White Columns in New York, alongside collaborating on projects with Imprint 93. His cultural output forms a significant archive of counter-cultural activities, unearthing and collecting unknown radical histories such as ‘Black Mask – Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers’, the reworking of Lettrist Cinema, and developing writing projects, such as Book Works  ‘Semina series’ of experimental novels.

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ODD THEORY has been since the beginning an attempt to understand as well as to reconfigure, with the delicate means afforded by a small-scale initiative, the Romanian imaginary. It functioned as a learning and sharing tool, and in the current configuration succeeded in its initial bet of bringing together a community of curious and courageous people. The small following overlapped ODD’s general following, but also managed to stand out as a work group of hybrid practitioners, one that is slowly developing common tools and initiatives.

In working with a collective imaginary, regardless of the scale of that collective, one has to face the challenge of the poor political imagination characterizing the contemporary world. Romania is, in that respect, eternally blocked in binaries which do not serve its citizens. The misery of catching up conflates with extremely narrow local politics, producing a public sphere in which important issues marking the world are never properly discussed. In that respect, ODD THEORY makes a point in choosing speakers who can deliver presentations and workshops on subjects that remain poorly known and understood on the local scene, topics which overlap and create a series of mind-opening mirrorings.

ODD THEORY is curated by Cristina Bogdan.

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http://www.oddweb.org/activity/odd-theory-24/

ODD THEORY

ODD THEORY #24 _ Stewart Home

ODD was founded in 2014 in Bucharest, grounded in the Romanian imaginary and looking to act upon the world. A space for theoretical discussion and social gatherings of all kinds, it welcomes artists, writers, researchers, philosophers, scientists who initiate discussions, workshops, reading groups, or become engaged with one of the long-term series: ODD THEORY, ODD NIGHTS, or QUIET ODD. It is run by Cristina Bogdan.

Uploads: ODD THEORY (lectures, discussions), ODD NIGHTS (music sessions), Introspective (listening sessions).