Category Archives: Talks

Common Intellectual

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http://www.copypress.co.uk/index/

Copy Press is an independent publishing company based in London, dedicated to extending ideas of writing, pictures and readability. Currently publishing 100-page paperbacks under the series name Common Intellectual, each title provides a proposition for living, thinking and enjoyment. Copy Press publishes authors whose work endeavours to bring writers and readers into a space where common voices can come together and gather mass.

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Ten public lectures on philosophy, politics and the arts

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Ten public lectures on philosophy, politics and the arts

Dates: 31 January 2013 until 30 May 2013

Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy and The London Graduate School in collaboration with Art and Philosophy at Central Saint Martins:

The lectures are free: arrive in good time to ensure a seat.

Thursdays, 18.00–20.00
Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London
Lecture Theatre E002
Granary Building
1 Granary Square
London N1C 4AA (Kings Cross tube)

Philosophy and the Black Panthers
31 January 2013
Howard Caygill (CRMEP)

The talk will reflect on the role played by philosophy in forming and articulating the political tactics and strategies of the Black Panthers (originally, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense), the revolutionary African-Amercian organization formed in California in 1966. It will suggest that philosophy provided a position from which the Black Panthers developed a radical politics of race in the USA beyond the religious orientations of the Civil Rights movement and the Nation of Islam. Focusing on the work of Huey Newton, the talk will emphasise the role played by Plato, Nietzsche and Speech Act Theory in the formulation of a politics of visibility and a performative concept of cultural and political intervention. It will also critically consider the reflections of the French writer Jean Genet on the Black Panthers practice of resistance.

The Singularity of Literary Cognition
7 February 2013
Sam Weber (LGS)

Whatever cognition is produced by the reading of literary – and probably more generally artistic – texts is sharply different from that produced by other disciplines. Most, if not all, critics will agree that a literary or artistic interpretation does not provide a universally valid meaning of the work or text being read, but rather something far more singular, more situationally bound, that arises from an encounter. Literary interpretations that matter are those that open the possibility of future encounters by sensitising one to the significance of hitherto neglected details or aspects, focusing as much on the “how” as the “what”. In this respect, literary encounters produce not so much knowledge as acknowledgement of the radical heterogeneity of texts. To that extent they can claim to provide an exemplary experience of singularity that is not without affinities to certain developments in contemporary science.

A Thought of/from the Outside
21 February 2013
Étienne Balibar (CRMEP)

A well-known essay published by Foucault in 1966 on the work of Maurice Blanchot, La pensée du dehors, was translated into English in two different ways: ‘The thought of the outside’, and ‘The thought from outside’. This indicates a deep ambiguity concerning its possible interpretations. Together with the earlier essay on Bataille (‘Preface to Transgression’), the essay forms the metaphysical counterpart to the early ‘archeological’ work, beginning with History of Madness and ending with The Order of Things, centered on the ‘anti-humanist’ doctrine of the elimination of the subject. It is widely supposed that, in his later work, when studying apparatuses of power-knowledge, and when outlining a history of regimes of subjectivation and truth, Foucault had entirely reversed this orientation. The lecture will discuss the enigmatic notion of the ‘outside’ and its relationship to transcendental philosophy, assess the importance of a dialogue with Blanchot in the formation of Foucault’s philosophy, and argue that, contrary to established wisdom, it never ceased to frame the critique of subjectivity in Foucault’s work.

Auto-Immune Narcissism
7 March 2013
Simon Morgan Wortham (LGS)

To what extent does sleep constitute a limit for the philosophical imagination? Why does it recur throughout the text of philosophy as a constant complication for Western thought, despite attempts to downplay its importance as purely physiological, or secondary to the question of dreams and dreaming? How does it change the question of dreams, for instance? This lecture asks such questions by turning to the work of Hegel, Bergson and Freud.

A Critical Theory of Sex
21 March 2013
Stella Sandford (CRMEP)

The sex/gender distinction has been fundamental to Anglophone feminist theory since the 1970s, in various different ways. Many feminists, seeing a direct political advantage in a vocabulary that allowed them to distinguish between what they saw as the biological reality of sex and normative masculinity and femininity, embraced ‘gender’ as a category of analysis. What is the relation of the sex/gender distinction and its theoretical vicissitudes to the social reality of everyday gendered lives? Has the sex/gender distinction ever made waves outside of feminist theory? In this lecture I will argue that the tendency of the popular cultural uses of the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ gives a false impression. The popular concept of sex is not the biological concept but its ideological deployment and as such the social reality of the idea of ‘sex’ is more important than its biological reality. Feminist theory requires a theoretically satisfying account of sex that is adequate to this social reality in order to oppose it. This is the role of a critical theory of sex.

The Postconceptual Condition
18 April 2013
Peter Osborne (CRMEP)

Whither Materialism?
2 May 2013
Catherine Malabou (CRMEP)

Duchamp à Calcutta
16 May 2013
Éric Alliez (CRMEP)

Spider Universe: Lars von Trier
23 May 2013
Scott Wilson (LGS)

Vitalism or Voluntarism?
30 May 2013
Peter Hallward (CRMEP)

Categories: Audience, Central Saint Martins, Events, Staff, Student, Talks

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Screening Memories

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Screening Memories

Deniz Akca: Practice Re-constructed
Dr. Mark Ingham: 120 Days and Nights of STAGGERING + STAMMERING
Date: Wednesday 2nd May 2012, 2-4pm
Venue: Green Room, Chelsea College of Art and Design, Millbank

Present: Deniz Acka, Lee Campbell, Lorrice Douglas, Mark Ingham, Maria Kheirkah,Ope Lori,  Elizabeth Manchester, Charlotte Webb


Deniz Acka, Night Map 2012



Deniz Akca is a full-time research student at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Her practice-led research uses cinematic and animated film to map representations of female identity. She draws on film and architectural space as representations for cultural and sexual identity. Her case study is Istiklal Avenue, one of Istanbul’s most famous avenues, surrounded by majestic Ottoman buildings in a range of architectural styles. It is also the historic home to Istanbul’s most important cinemas. For the case study she investigates and analyses the photographic and filmic representations of women in this place. Her practice involves transforming her case study into animated image. For this presentation she will talk about how this particular urban space shaped the beginnings of her research practice during her initial training as an architect in Istanbul.

For the Practice Exchange Deniz introduced her research project which entails the mapping of female identity through Turkish film and architecture. The practice of mapping has been influenced by Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film, by Giuliana Bruno as well as the psycho-geographical mapping present in the work of Peter Greenaway.

The site for Deniz’s research is Istiklal Avenue, a street in the historic Pera region of Istanbul. Deniz gave some historical background about the development of the regions of Pera & Gerata where Istiklal avenue resides, and which form the borders of her research. She described the development of Ottoman social relations to non-Muslim people living the area, and noted that different social and cultural conventions were played out amongst different social groups.
The foundations of Turkish cinema were formed close to Istiklal Avenue, and cinema was culturally significant in this area, with the first cinema opening there in 1938. Although Turkish cinema became prominent during the 1950s, Deniz is focusing on films from 1990 to the present. She showed a key photograph from the 1970s, depicting a group of actresses, actors and directors who took to the streets to celebrate the birth of Turkish cinema.
Deniz is particularly interested in the representation of Istiklal Avenue in the 1993 film Whistle If You Come Back by Orhan Oğuz, which she first saw when she was 9 years old.Whistle if you come back is about the painful lives and struggles of two nameless protagonists – a transvestite and a dwarf who are referred to as ‘This and That’. Scenes of exchange between them are shot inside a flat on Istiklal Avenue, the landlady of which is ‘Madame Lena’, a rich Greek lady from a non-Muslim community. Madame Lena’s character is important with regard to the representation of the female identity of Istiklal Avenue. She is isolated from society in the film, and in a real-life reflection of this, Deniz noted that the actresses name was never listed in the cast list of the film. The rights of film belong to ministry of culture of Turkey.
Madame Lena’s identity is unexplored in the film, which provided a space for Deniz to interpret her identity imaginatively in her first animation, a reconstruction of the interior of Madame Lena’s flat. Deniz thought of Madame Lena’s bedroom as a museum where memories are collected. The architectural space and her objects are used as a representation of her cultural identity.
Films provide the main source material for her research, but Deniz also goes to Istanbul as much as possible to gather images from second-hand book shops and to take her own photographs. She noted that this is not archival research.
Deniz showed her latest animation, ‘Night Map’, which she referred to as documentation of ‘memory spaces’ in Istiklal Avenue. Certain details of the architecture were reconstructed from Deniz’s own materials and photographic collections. The animation depicts a fragmented architectural space in which the streets’ inhabitants appear and disappear. There is an evocative sound track which comprises sounds of the comings and goings of people and traffic on Istiklal Avenue.
DISCUSSION
In relation to the Night Map work, Mark was reminded of Deleuze’s concept of the crystal image because of how it deals with time and space. As in Deniz’s animation, in the crystal image time, space and sound become something we don’t expect…
Maria noted that, going back and forth from Iran, she is always struck by sounds and how different they are from sounds in the UK. She commented that the sound performs an important function in Deniz’s work.
Maria asked if there a sense in which Deniz’s work represents her own feelings of isolation from Turkey. Deniz doesn’t see herself as an outsider, having lived in Istanbul from 2001 – 2007. She described her presence there in the past as an almost disappeared architectural layer – now she is here in the UK, removed from the city, she can look at the city as a research object.
Maria also noted that there seemed to be an element of voyeurism or exoticisation present in the work, though it was noted that it might not be possible to avoid an element of voyeurism.
There was a discussion of the question of absence in Deniz’s work – in her first animation she wanted to refer to the absence of the non-Muslim women in Istiklal Avenue, and the absence of Madame Lena’s character in the film. In the later work, images of women are used. There was a discussion about how images of women might be utilised by Deniz and what the potential problems are with this – particularly ethical issues surrounding the use of found images of women whose relatives may still be alive. Charlotte noted that the floating ghostly quality of the figures in the Night Map work underlined this sense of disembodiment – of separation from the representation of women from the reality of their lives?
Dr. Mark Ingham, Marilyn Henry and Me 1956-2011



Dr. Mark Ingham is PhD Director of Studies/Supervisor at Wimbledon College of Art, and Principal Lecturer (Masters Programme Leader) in the Communication Media for Design Department at the School of Architecture & Construction, University of Greenwich. For the Practice Exchange, Mark will begin by presenting a short film:

“The young man at the beginning of Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘The Mirror’ stammers and stutters, and then learns not to. My grandmother, Rose-Marie, staggers out of The China Hall Public House, The White Horse Tavern, The Crystal Tavern, The Eagle and never learns. In the icy wastes of the French Alps she dives into freezing lakes. Followed by my grandfather, without a St. Bernard dog for company. ‘Ice, No Brandy’. The very, very, late night Troy Bar in Soho always clings. However far I try and get away from ‘Grey Gardens’ it still tugs me back to ‘Tea for Two’. ‘Just tea for two and two for tea Just me for you Just tea for two and two for tea Just me for you.’ Our lives are smeared throughout the world, recalled through disparate, dissolute, fragmentary images, sounds and memories. This becoming can be a start of a conversation.”

For the Practice Exchange, Mark began by showing a slideshow of images in order to introduce himself to the audience. This comprised images of his own work in relation to fragments of text from A Thousand Plateaus, by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Mark became enamoured with Deleuze & Guattari when doing his PhD at Goldsmiths. In his work, he is trying to unravel the idea of the rhizome. For TPE he wanted to unpick the first passage in A Thousand Plateaus where the rhizome is described.

One of the things that appeals to Mark about Deleuze is that he tries to question what thinking is. (Deleuze’s PhD included a chapter called ‘The Image of Thought’). Deleuze and Guattari want to go against the idea that knowledge is rooted or fixed. They want everything to be connected – they don’t want us to be separated – Mark is attempting to reflect on whether he can or has become rhizomatic in his work. It was noted that an attempt to engage an audience by way of metaphor (such as the rhizome) is problematic, because it’s easy to start focusing on the images being which can, paradoxically, fix or obstruct the broader conceptual terrain…
Mark showed a series of early works from his BA and MA ranging from large scale wooden structures, to an installation of hanging chairs which he saw as ghosts, to a bin full of garlic, shown at Camberwell college, which made a gallery visitor vomit several times. He mentioned that at this time, he took up contemporary ballet.
He talked about a Henry Moore fellowship undertaken from 1985-1986, during which he was putting objects in trees, and described a desire to escape his own ‘artschoolness’. He wanted to avoid making things that looked too conspicuously like ‘art’, and to resist art’s imperative for signification.
In a later series of work, he started to trace his genealogy through his grandfather’s slide collection, tracing over many overlayered slides to create densely layered drawings.
Mark’s presentation can be seen in full here:https://markingham.org/stories/becoming-rhizomatic/
Mark then showed a more recent work: ‘120 days and nights of STAGGERING and STAMMERING’, a video work which can be seen here: http://mark27ingham.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/120-days-and-nights-of-staggering-and-stammering-bam/


DISCUSSION
Mark said he feels trapped by making art – though this is not necessarily a bad thing, as making art can be truly liberating. There was a connection between Deleuze’s desire to resist signification and Mark’s desire to resist the conventions of art production.
Deniz was interested that Mark talked about education – she is from an architectural background, and expected that art would be a ‘free space’! That it is seen as so bound by conventions and aesthetic boundaries was a surprise to her.
Charlotte felt that her life as an artist is also characterised by the feeling of being trapped – again, she does not feel this is necessarily completely negative, but rather provides something to push away from in developing her practice.
There was significant discussion of the computer generated voiceover in the film, which is created using a read out loud text to speech tool in Adobe Acrobat. The voice had a quality of chanting or incantation, and it was sometimes difficult or impossible to understand what was being said. Mark said that he wanted to avoid having a conventional narrative, using his own voice. There was a simultaneous desire to articulate a practice and be voiceless…
Lorrice was struck by the performative nature of the work, and saw Mark’s practice as trying to perform Deleuze, or embody a Deleuzian approach.
Charlotte enjoyed the fact that the temporal status of 120 days and nights of STAGGERING and STAMMERING was difficult to pin down – was it documentation of a show, was it a proposal for a show, did it look into the past or future? There were seen to be similarities between Mark and Deniz’s work in this regard.Elizabeth liked the fact that in the first part of the presentation, there were some linguistic slippages between the texts on the screen and the way Mark read them – this was pertinent to the idea of stammering…