Tag: Future

SCHOOL OF RESISTANCE ° Assembling Political Power

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

On the weekend of the German federal elections of 2021IIPM, NTGent, Schauspiel Köln and the School of Political Hope hosted together with #LeaveNoOneBehind and numerous organizations from all over the world a School of Resistance for a new politics of humanity and justice. How can the system of dehumanization, illegalization and exploitation of migrants in Europe be overturned? A manifesto signed by over 80 public figures and a joint fundraising campaign which supports human rights lawyers to bring responsible politicians and officials to court, explored new possibilities and potentials for the convergence of art and activism. Is art a future tool for survival for global citizens to become agents of change in times of crisis?

Floating University © Pierre Ardenis

XI: Architectures of Hospitality (Merve Bedir, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius/raumlabor berlin, Marina Otero Verzier & Florian Malzacher)

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

Hospitality – with all its seeming generosity – is a complex concept: Who is invited into our societies, our assemblies? What are the relationships between guests and hosts? Is unconditional hospitality possible? The architecture of public space, the infrastructures of coming together, the borders and thresholds around them inform how we come together, what is prevented from happening, what is possible. The 11th edition of The Art of Assembly looks at the physical relations of gatherings, how bodies and objects are organised, how radical concepts of democracy can be represented in space. Architect and researcher Merve Bedir since long researches infrastructures of hospitality and mobility as well of the residue of solidarity in urban and public space. For raumlabor architecture is a tool, in search for a city of possibilities, considering themselves activists, operating within the urban landscape. And for architect and scholar Marina Otero Verzier is concerned with how the work of architects, in coordination with other social and institutional techniques, produces differential spaces that either facilitate or prevent their encounter of bodies.

The Chruch of Stop Shopping © Savitri D

IV: Choirs of Precarity & Power (Claudia Bosse, The Church of Stop Shopping, Alia Mossallam & Florian Malzacher)

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

Choirs are a very specific form of assembling – from representing “the people” in Greek tragedy via all kinds of religious choirs, political choirs, revolutionary choirs up to the legendary human mic at Occupy Wall Street and the iconic chants at Tahrir Square in 2011. Theatre director Claudia Bosse, art theorist Alia Mossallam, and the activists of The Church of Stop Shopping discuss the potential (and perhaps dangers), the tenderness, the precarity and the power of synchronised singing, chanting, shouting along concrete artistic and activistic practices in Cairo, New York and Vienna.

ALIA MOSSALLAM ° To Chant the Worlds Away. The Anatomy of the 2011 Revolution

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

‘unshaken’. It was one of the newer chants that were infused into us on the 25th of January 2011 – every time the police launched an offensive, and people started to run, someone would shout “Ithabt” as he or she stopped moving, and then several would shout it, and then tens and hundreds, until thousands would stop. I would close my ears and squeeze my eyes shut and let the thousands of voices shake through me, shake out the fear, and stabilise my resolve.

III: Assemblism (Jonas Staal, Jodi Dean & Florian Malzacher)

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

“Assemblism” is a term used by Dutch artist Jonas Staal to describe the role of art, performance and theater in the performative assembly of mass protests and social movements, which is central to his own artistic work. US-American political theorist Jodi Dean on the other hand emphasizes in her writing that social movements need to be translated into a new communist party if they want to become sustainable. So, what is the potential of art in not only investigating or inventing new forms of assembly but also in contributing to the process of transforming them into sustainable organizational structures? And how do recent political mobilizations – from anti-mask-demonstration up to the storming of Capitol Hill – change an often romanticized view on the assembling of bodies in space?

Jonas Staal – New World Embassy: Rojava © Ernie Buts

JONAS STAAL ° Art/Assemblism

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

Assemblism describes the visual morphologies that emerge from the practice of “performative assembly “in popular mass movements, as termed by Athena Athanasiou and Judith Butler. But to canalize the energies and imaginaries that emerge in assemblies, durational infrastructures are needed to ensure egalitarian forms of social organization, as Jodi Dean has argued in Crowds and Party. What is the role of art in shaping and propagating new life-forms from the squares into a new emancipatory institutionality? This talk will explore the role of alternative parliaments, utopian training camps, experimental biospheres and collective action lawsuits in furthering assemblist imaginary into egalitarian presents and futures.

Public Movement "Spring in Warsaw" (2009) © Tomasz Pastenak

I: Assembly as Preenactment (Oliver Marchart, Dana Yahalomi & Florian Malzacher)

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

„Preenactment“ is a term used by choreographer and artist Dana Yahalomi / Public Movement (Tel Aviv) as well as by political theorist Oliver Marchart (Wien) to describe the artistic anticipation of political events to come. So, how can political or artistic assemblies become rehearsals or trainings for an unpredictable future? Recorded on January 23rd 2021

"Dancing in the Streets" (2011) © Eyal Vexler

OLIVER MARCHART ° Future Politics / Political Futures. Pre-enacting the Cause for Assembly

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

Do we assemble for a cause or for reasons? What is the nature of a political cause? What is it that brings us together? And why does a true political cause issue from the future? Provided there is a future after the end of futurity. The notion of pre-enactment may point to an answer.

"Artist Organisations International" (2015) © Lidia Rossner

FLORIAN MALZACHER ° Spheres of Pragmatic Utopias and Radical Imagination. The Art of Assembly

Posted on by brut Koproduktionshaus Wien

by a wide range of assemblies within the field that tried out and challenged social and political procedures with which societies can be imagined, played, performed, enacted, tested, or even invented