Slow Under Construction takes its title from a poem jointly written by André Breton, René Char and Paul Éluard, and with Surrealism as an important precursor in mind the purpose of the seminar is to explore the potential that practices of collective writing may have in contributing to political critique.
Collective authorship is relatively common in contemporary political theory on the far left, in important journals like Aufheben, Endnotes and Tiqqun, and other precedents for collective writing can be found in the novels of Luther Blisset and Wu Ming, and Bernadette Corporation’s Reena Spaulings. What is the role of art historians, artists and poets in combatting a world of supposed image war and spectacle? Might the intersection of artistic research and experimentation with forms begun by the historic avant-garde point to possible aesthetics of resistance that may come out of collective process? How might such experiments release potential transformation of their material base, and what limits do its supports place on writing?
In pondering questions like these it may be possible to draw on art-historical understanding of the importance of the aesthetic breakthroughs made by the avant-garde, and how this may inform the literary style in which political theory and critique is written.
Different forms of collective writing (and its possible breakdown) might also be explored in relation to the process of writing as social itself, perhaps more important than the finished work. What kinds of community are, or might be, formed through literary activity and experience? Over and above the pooling of resources that results from multiple authorship we’d like to discuss whether moments of communization may occur during the construction of text itself.
With: Hannah Ohlén, Miréne Arsanios (98 weeks), Keston Sutherland, Larne Abse Gogarty, Carsten Juhl, Ida Marie Hele, Lise Skou, Rasmus Brink Pedersen, Frisk Flugt (Tina Helen & Ask Katzeff), Katarina Stenbeck, James Day, Sidsel Nelund
The seminar is in English and is arranged by the Institute for Research and Interdisciplinary Studies. Free admission.
Programme
10:00-10:30 Introduction to Slow Under Construction
10:30-11:15 Workshop with Larne Abse Gogarty
Tea break
11:30-12:15 Workshop with Hannah Ohlén
Lunch
13:15-14:00 Workshop with Miréne Arsanios
14:00-14:45 Workshop with Keston Sutherland
Tea break
15:00-16:00 Final session