WEDNESDAY 22 MAY & THURSDAY 23 MAY 2024
A 2-day symposium that aims to ignite e-motion by way of anarchy. Rooted in a belief that anarchy — be it defined as the absence of centralized authority, unpredictability, critique of power structures, advocacy for chaos, playfulness, wildness or total destruction — is crucial to art making. This symposium is fueled by a deep yearning for lush and unruly intimacies in times of devastation and heartbreak. Boldly put, ANARCHY?! Every Stone Contains Fire and Moisture commits to anarchic vitality, in the hope that we might be able to sensitize wounded sites and zones through libidinous, flower-powered touch!
Everybody is welcome!
The symposium is sparked by Lea Porsager’s post-doctoral project titled Outrageous Intimacy – Spooky Touch at a Distance, which is hosted by The Royal Danish Art Academy and generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
KEYNOTE WEDNESDAY 22 MAY 2024 16:00–17:30 Michael Marder: “AI: Anarchic Intelligence. On Epinoia.”
KEYNOTE THURSDAY 23 MAY 2024 16:00–17:30 Catherine Malabou: “The clitoris is an anarchist: Horizontality, pleasure and the critique of domination.”
PLACE:
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Hirschsprung Auditorium, Peder Skrams Gade 2, 3rd floor, 1050 Copenhagen.
ANARCHY?! Every Stone Contains Fire and Moisture
The subtitle is borrowed from St. Hildegard of Bingen’s Physica, a tribute to her juicy spirituality and mindblowing visions.
Program
WEDNESDAY 22 MAY
10.00–11.30: KUNDALINI MOVEMENT + FLAPDOODLE-ING Please arrive 10 minutes early, so we can settle down and prepare the space. Bring a water bottle, comfortable clothes, a notebook, and if you have a yoga-mat, bring that too.
13.00–15.00: OPEN CLASS/LECTURE “MATERIALISATIONS OF THE ANARCHIC DIVINE” by guest Laura Katrine Skinnebach
16.00–17:30: KEYNOTE “AI: ANARCHIC INTELLIGENCE. ON EPINOIA” by Michael Marder
THURSDAY 23 MAY
13.00–15.00: OPEN CLASS. / ÅBEN KLASSE Guest Peter Borum speaks about Catherine Malabou’s book “PLEASURE ERASED: The Clitoris Unthought” which he is currently translating into Danish (note that this session will be held in Danish).
16.00–17:30: KEYNOTE “THE CLITORIS IS AN ANARCHIST: HORIZONTALITY. PLEASURE AND THE CRITIQUE OF DOMINATION” by Catherine Malabou, joining us online at the Hirschsprung Auditorium.
GUESTS
Laura Katrine Skinnebach, PhD and Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Art History, Museology and Aesthetics and Culture, Aarhus Univerisity. Her research focuses on theories of images, materiality and animation in a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective, as well as pre-modern spirituality and devotional practice. Her most recent book is Animation between Magic, Miracles and Mechanics. Principles of Life in Medieval Imagery co-written with Hans Henrik Lohfert Jørgensen and Henning Laugerud (Aarhus University Press 2023). She is currently working on a book on Objects of Animation in Medieval Scandinavia.
Peter Borum, PhD in Literature, Associate Professor in Art Theory at the Jutland Art Academy and External Lecturer at the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen.
His area of interest includes aesthetics and formation, particularly in the visual arts. He has worked on issues such as the relation between singular form (an oxymoron) and individual artwork, its field of conditions, and the ensuing virtual transformations of that field (effects of reference, expression, territorialization, problematization). He is also an acclaimed translator.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Catherine Malabou, French philosopher and professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS and of modern European philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University, London. She is known for her work on plasticity, a concept she culled from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which has proved fertile within contemporary economic, political, and social discourses. Widely regarded as one of the most exciting figures in what has been called “The New French Philosophy,” Malabou engages in strong, idiosyncratic and playful conversations with a range of issues and figures, including intelligence, domination, and difference. In her keynote, Malabou will draw from her two most recent works: Pleasure Erased: The Clitoris Unthought (Cambridge: Polity, 2022, trans. Carolyn Shread) and Stop Thief! Anarchism and Philosophy (Cambridge: Polity, 2023, trans. Carolyn Shread).
Michael Marder, Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz. His work spans the fields of environmental philosophy and ecological thought, political theory, and phenomenology. Marder has taught at several universities in the United States and Canada, including Georgetown University, George Washington University, Duquesne University, University of Toronto and University of Saskatchewan. His latest books include The Phoenix Complex: A Philosophy of Nature (MIT Press, 2023) and, with Edward S. Casey, Plants in Place: A Phenomenology of the Vegetal (Columbia University Press, 2023). Marder is currently working on his forthcoming publication Metamorphoses Reimagined (Columbia University Press, 2025).