e-flux journal series at REDCAT—#1

Two days of workshops and events featuring Julieta Aranda, Benjamin H. Bratton, Ricardo Dominguez, Ruth Estévez, Sohrab Mohebbi, Stephen Squibb, Andrew Norman Wilson, and Dena Yago.

For almost a century, art has been positioning itself vis-à-vis the cultural industry. But today, with the mass availability of user-friendly media technology at the tip of our fingers, the said industry is undergoing a mass transformation. How will art respond to the reconfiguration, and possible collapse of its preferred opponent?

Will it dismount and take a knee before the evacuated sound stage, overcome with emotion at the fate of its old counterpart? Will the museums staff drive in triumphant circles at the center of Paramount’s lawn? It’s not like us to celebrate. How will we greet our dawn?

e-flux is pleased to announce the beginning of an open-ended collaboration with REDCAT, beginning the weekend of October 1–2, 2016, in pursuit of these and other problems.

​The Artist in Crisis
Saturday, October 1

1:30–3:30pm
By registration: workshop with Stephen Squibb, Andrew Norman Wilson, and Dena Yago

5pm
Public: conversation with Julieta Aranda, Ruth Estévez, Stephen Squibb, and Dena Yago; screening of Ode to Seekers 2012 by Andrew Norman Wilson

Recent trends have urgently raised the question of whether the artist is an artist anymore or rather something else. A revolutionary in disguise, or some kind of organizer. Do we need the artist to be something distinct with regards to art? How do we negotiate our identities as artists alongside our involvement within quintessentially late-capital institutions? Can we find the poetics within these institutions while still seeing art and an artistic identity as being outside of them somehow?
The readings offered for discussion background this question by looking at moments of crisis, both contemporary and otherwise, and how the positioning of art and artists within them has been understood.

Stephen Squibb, Andrew Norman Wilson, and Dena Yago will hold a workshop considering the fate of the artist-figure in recent constellations. Readings: “Expressionism: Its Significance and Decline,” Georg Lukács (1934); “Is a Museum a Factory?,” Hito Steyerl (2009); “The Stalinist Art Of Living,” from The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, Boris Groys (2011); “The Artist Leaving the Googleplex,” Andrew Norman Wilson (2016).

At 5pm, Julieta Aranda, Ruth Estévez, Stephen Squibb, and Dena Yago will have a public conversation introducing the new e-flux journal series at REDCAT. Following this, Andrew Norman Wilson will screen and discuss his new work Ode to Seekers 2012 (HD video, color, sound, 8:30 minutes, 2016).

Theory/fiction
Sunday, October 2

1–3pm
By registration: workshop with Julieta Aranda, Benjamin H. Bratton, and Ricardo Dominguez

4pm
Public: conversation with Julieta Aranda, Benjamin H. Bratton, and Ricardo Dominguez

It has been said that science and philosophy are linked because they are both theoretical disciplines. By that same logic they are also immigration officials, patrolling the border with fiction. Theory/fiction is the insurgent practice of smuggling ideas across the border.

Julieta Aranda, Benjamin H. Bratton, and Ricardo Dominguez will hold a workshop considering the contemporary work of theory/fiction. Readings: Report on an Unidentified Space Station, J.G. Ballard (1982); The Things, Peter Watts (2010); “The Role of Megastructure in the Eschatology of John Frum (On OMA’s Master Plan for the Spratly Islands),” Benjamin H. Bratton (2016); “Dronologies: Or Twice Told Tales,” Ricardo Dominguez (forthcoming 2016).

Then at 4pm, Aranda, Bratton, and Dominguez will have a public conversation on the topic.

Admission is free and open to the public; workshops require registration: redcatrsvp [​at​] calarts.edu.