FORMAT – A LIVE SUMMER MAGAZINE: ISSUE 1
Organized by Shumon Basar
28 June–11 July 2011
AA Gallery
Architectural Association
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
FORMAT is a new, ‘live magazine’ looking at the shapes that discourse takes. The first issue debuts this summer at the AA in a transformed version of the Gallery. It will talk about talking, show what it means to show something, and present the hidden politics of presentation. Mixing anecdote and analysis, seminars with screenings, FORMAT’s themed, reflexive sessions look back historically on how knowledge has been formatted into disciplines, institutions, technologies—and how the present moment questions or surpasses received formats of cultural consumption. Issue 1 features a format that momentarily suspends the laws of physics; a format that proves things mean what they say; a format that says things but not always means anything; a format that accumulates knowledge; a format that forces us to look backwards each day we move forwards all set around a specially designed coffee-table by Martino Gamper. The radio art station Resonance 104.4fm will broadcast the sessions during August 2011.
Paraphrasing Samuel Beckett, ‘Format is content, content is format.’
Issue 1—Schedule
All events commence at 6.30pm. Entrance is free.
Tuesday 28 June
MAGIC FORMAT
presents live levitation, designing illusion, disappearing buildings, and David Copperfield’s anti-gravity with JONATHAN ALLEN and SAM JACOB. Guest appearance MR. SCOTT PENROSE
Thursday 30 June
PHILOSOPHY FORMAT
presents diaries, dialogues, Deleuze’s diagram paradigms, and the work of Collapsewith OSCAR GUARDIOLA-RIVERA, ROBIN MACKAY and ALBERTO TOSCANO. Guest video appearance JACQUES LACAN
Wednesday 6 July
LECTURE FORMAT
presents the presentational aspect of art, the comic didactic in PowerPoint, and Utopian visions recited to the rhythm of a sweaty dance-floorwith VICTORIA CAMBLIN, MARK COUSINS, and TUOMAS TOIVONEN
Friday 8 July
LIBRARY FORMAT
presents repositories, their classifications, readings on archives in novels, and Abby Warburg’s idiosyncratic shelving system with CHARLES ARSÈNE-HENRY, ANNA MADELEY, FRANÇOIS QUIVIGER and GEOFFREY STREATFIELD
Monday 11 July
ANNIVERSARY FORMAT
remembers those dates from the past we are not allowed to forget as well as those never known in the first place, guest edited by SEXYMACHINERY
AA Gallery
Architectural Association
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
www.aaschool.ac.uk
format.aaschool.ac.uk
Opening times: Monday to Friday 10.00am–7.00pm; Saturday 10.00am–3.00pm