Second RITCS Arts & Politics Symposium : One Struggle?

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Symposium RITCS @ CENTRALE

28, 29 & 30-11 2018
11:00 > 18:00
Second RITCS Arts & Politics Symposium : One Struggle? (EN)
Free
In the frame of OPEN ACADEMY

In the Second RITCS Arts & Politics Symposium, entitled One Struggle ?, the question will be asked whether, and how different forms of contestation today are connected to each other. This question will be dealt with from a different theme on each of the three days, both in discussions with a number of invited theoreticians, writers and artists, and in presentations by dozens of students from the various Master programs at the RITCS.

With Isabelle Stengers, Milo Rau, Benedikte Zitouni, Vincent Meessen, Bambi Ceuppens, Pitcho Womba Konga, Raven Ruëll, Lieven De Cauter, Geert Opsomer, Dieter Lesage and the MA students at RITCS School of Arts.

28-11 Towards a World Assembly?
Coordinator: Dieter Lesage, philosopher.

11:00 > 11:45: Milo Rau, On General Assembly. Lecture/presentation.

12:00 > 12:45: Q&A with Milo Rau.

14:00 > 18:00: 2000 Years of Protest Around the Globe. Short presentations by MA students at RITCS.

Is the multitude today the subject of the contestation and its meetings – whether it is the Occupy Movement and its occupation of Zuccotti Park in New York, or the Arab Spring and its manifestations at Tahrir Square in Cairo – the places where a new world takes shape? Are these assemblies a radical alternative to the institutions of representative democracy? Or should these settings become even more representative?

Is the multitude today the subject par excellence of the contestation and its meetings – whether it is the Occupy Movement and its occupation of Zuccotti Park in New York, or the Arab Spring and its manifestations at Tahrir Square in Cairo – the places where a new world takes shape? Are these assemblies a radical alternative to the institutions of representative democracy? Or should these settings become even more representative? The expositions with these questions will include the theory of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt (Assembly), as well as the work of theater maker Milo Rau, who will give a lecture on his project General Assembly on November 28, 2018 at 11am. In the afternoon, from 2pm until 6pm, MA students of RITCS will present a series of short presentations under the title 2000 Years of Protest Around the Globe.

29-11 Decolonizing the Mind?
Coordinator: Geert Opsomer, dramaturg and cultural theorist.

11:00 > 11:45: Vincent Meessen, One Two Three. Screening.

11:45 > 12:00: Bambi Ceuppens, intervention.

12:00 > 13:00: Q&A with Vincent Meessen, Bambi Ceuppens.

14:00 > 16:00: MA students at RITCS talk with Pitcho Womba Konga and Raven Ruëll.

16:00 > 18:00: Message to Rachida. Presentation by MA students at RITCS.

That there is a serious problem with regard to the representativeness of our democratic institutions and that this problem is the object of necessary contestation, will be one of the discussion points during the talks and student presentations on Thursday 29 November 2018, coordinated by dramaturgist and cultural theorist Geert Opsomer. They will be devoted to postcolonial forms of resistance and contestation around the question Decolonizing the Mind? and, among other sources, depart from the work of the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe (Critique de la raison nègre). Guest speaker on November 29, 2018 at 11 am will be Belgian artist Vincent Meessen, who will present his work One Two Three, which will be discussed with curator and researcher Bambi Ceuppens. In the afternoon, from 2pm until 6pm, MA students of RITCS will engage in talks with artists Pitcho Womba Konga and Raven Ruëll, as well as present a ‘Message to Rachida’.

30-11 Eco-feminism versus the Anthropocene?
Coordinator: Lieven De Cauter, philosopher and activist.

11:00 > 12:30: Isabelle Stengers & Benedikte Zitouni. Conversation with Lieven De Cauter.

14:00 > 15:30: Presentations and interventions by MA students at RITCS.

16:00 > 17:30: Presentations and interventions by MA students at RITCS.

On Friday 30 November 2018, the third and final day of the One Struggle symposium, coordinated by philosopher Lieven De Cauter, will be devoted to the theme Eco-feminism versus the Anthropocene.  The focus will be on the convergence between feminism and ecology. Against the background of the contestable and contested notion of the “Anthropocene”, the new geological era dominated by Man as a species, this convergence is more than ever topical if not urgent. After all, the theory of the Anthropocene is based on a unified (hu)man who marches through history as “his-story”, as Isabelle Stengers puts it aptly in her talks and in her book In catastrophic times. As T.J. Demos in Against the Anthropocene has convincingly demonstrated, the notion of humanity as the subject of universal history obscures carbon-based capitalism as the main cause of climate change. Donna Haraway is pleading for other names and other approaches in her book Staying With the Trouble. On this final day, from 11am on, all these issues will be discussed with philosophers Isabelle Stengers and Benedikte Zitouni. As during the other days, the final word will be to RITCS master students who will present artistic works and practices that are characterized by crossovers between feminism and ecology.

 

Second RITCS Arts & Politics Symposium organised by RITCS in partnership with CENTRALE for contemporary art

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