February 14, 2012
STUK arts centre opens the first branch of Time/Bank in Belgium. Initiated by artists Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle in 2009, Time/Bank is a platform that enables people to trade goods and services without using money. Time/Bank allows groups and individuals to collectively exchange their time and skills through the use of credits earned through the bank, as an intermediary and guarantor.
Initially, STUK will present Time/Bank within the context of the Artefact Festival 2012: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT (14-23 February 2012). After the festival ends, it will stay in STUK till the 18th of March and will later tour in other Belgian cities and M museum in Leuven.
The title and theme of the eleventh edition of Artefact is “The Social Contract”. This term has been used in political and philosophical theories since the 17th century, but still emerges regularly today, in interviews with politicians, political party programs and debates. Even the early adopters of the social contract theory, such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, used and interpreted the concept in different ways. The classic interpretation concerns the relation between the individual as a citizen and a political entity, in which the individual sacrifices part of his freedom and power in order for the state to offer safety and social and economic security to the citizen. But what is the position of the social contract in our current times of crisis in a globalized world?
One of the festival’s main questions is whether we can renegotiate or reform those ‘contracts’. Can we cancel them, rewrite them? The programme focuses on different forms of resistance and imagination. With exhibitions, performances, debates and meetings with international artists, we look for the position and alternatives for The Social Contract in our contemporary information and network society.
Schedule:
February 15: Time/Bank workshop, 2–6pm
February 17: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part I, 2008
February 18: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part II, 2008
February 19: VPRO Backlight, Frankly, we share everything, 2011
February 20: Fritz Lang, Metropolis, 1927
February 21: Anton Vidokle, New York Conversations, 2010
February 22: Claude Faraldo, Themroc, 1973
February 23: Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, 2011
February 24: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part I, 2008
February 25: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part II, 2008
February 26: VPRO Backlight, Frankly, we share everything, 2011
February 29: Fritz Lang, Metropolis, 1927
March 1: Anton Vidokle, New York Conversations, 2010
March 2: Claude Faraldo, Themroc, 1973
March 3: Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, 2011
March 4: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part I, 2008
March 7: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part II, 2008
March 8: VPRO Backlight, Frankly, we share everything, 2011
March 9: Fritz Lang, Metropolis, 1927
March 10: Anton Vidokle, New York Conversations, 2010
March 11: Claude Faraldo, Themroc, 1973
March 14: Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, 2011
March 15: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part I, 2008
March 16: Alexander Kluge, News from Ideological Antiquity. Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, Part II, 2008
March 17: VPRO Backlight, Frankly, we share everything, 2011
March 18: Fritz Lang, Metropolis, 1927