ANGRIER & KINDER - Blending Art(istic) and Political Voice
SPIN proposes this event as the first in a series of evenings to encourage critical discussions around different urgent questions within art practice today.
For this lively night of discussion, Kate McIntosh invites three international speakers whose artistic work actively engages with the political questions of our time.
Jacob Wren, John Jordan and Anna Rispoli are invited to articulate their very different strategies of approach in the political elements of their work. The diverse and creative tactics of these three speakers will open to a discussion - exploring the real impact and problems of combining artistic and political voice now. What are the subversive potentials of art in today's political climate? Which skills do artists bring to political debate and action?
John Jordan is an art activist who sees art's role as creating new forms of radical action rather than representation of politics. He was a co-founder of the "Reclaim the Streets" movement, and co-edited the book "We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism".
Jacob Wren is a writer and performance maker. His latest book is Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed, and he was last seen at Beursschouwburg with the performance An Anthology of Optimism.
Anna Rispoli is a visual and performative artist whose works investigates conceptual and esthetical possibilities between public domains and private territories. Last year Kunsten Festival Des Arts opened with her performance Vorrei tanto tornare a casa.Please scroll down for more information on the invited speakers.
JOHN JORDAN (UK)
John Jordan's work merges the imagination of art and the radical engagement of activism, creating new forms of participatory civil disobedience rather than representations of politics. Co-director of social art group Platform (1987-1995) he went on to work in the direct-action collective "Reclaim the Streets" (1995-2000). In 2003 he co-edited the book "We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism" (Verso). Senior lecturer in fine art at Sheffield Hallam University (1994 – 2003), he abandoned academia to work on the film "The Take" with Naomi Klein. In 2004 he stupidly formed the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. He is now AWOL and works with the UK Climate Camp movements and runs the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, infamous for launching a rebel raft regatta to shut down a coal fired power station, turning bikes into machines of disobedience during the Copenhagen climate summit and pouring molasses over the BP sponsored Tate gallery. He has just co-created a film-book with Isabelle Fremeaux, about postcapitalist life in Europe: Les Sentiers de l'Utopies, , published by Editions Zones. He was recently labelled as a "Domestic Extremist" by the metropolitan police, but feels his lack of ironing skills make him unsuitable for the title.
Links:
JACOB WREN (Canada)
Jacob Wren is a writer and maker of eccentric performances. His books include Unrehearsed Beauty, Families Are Formed Through Copulation and Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed. These books have been translated into French and published by Le Quartanier. As co-artistic director of Montreal-based interdisciplinary group PME-ART he has co-created En francais comme en anglais, it's easy to criticize (1998), Unrehearsed Beauty / Le Génie des autres (2002), La famille se crée en copulant (2005) and the ongoing HOSPITALITÉ / HOSPITALITY series which includes: 1: The Title Is Constantly Changing (2007), 2: Gradually This Overview (2010), 3: Individualism Was A Mistake (2008) and 5: The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information (2011). He has also collaborated with Nadia Ross and her company STO Union. Together they have co-written and co-directed Recent Experiences (2000) and Revolutions in Therapy (2004). In 2007 he was invited by Sophiensaele (Berlin) to adapt and direct Wolfgang Koeppen's 1954 novel Der Tod in Rom and in 2008 he was commissioned by Campo (Ghent) to collaborate with Pieter De Buysser on An Anthology of Optimism. He frequently writes about contemporary art.
Links:
http://www.radicalcut.blogspot.com
http://www.anthologyofoptimism.com
http://www.agorareview.ca/?q=node/9
http://www.lequartanier.com/auteurs/wren.htm
ANNA RISPOLI (Italy/Belgium)
With her work Anna Rispoli investigates conceptual possibilities and esthetical options between public spaces and private territories. Via live-art acts, installations and participatory practices she likes to promote unexpected usages of certain disputed territories.The relationship between humans and their environment being a strong source of inspiration, she is trying to questions the possibility of domestication of public space.Some of her recent events include A PIECE OF LAND, a performance questioning urban revitalization issues in Mülheim an der Ruhr which was realised with the complicity of the inhabitants of the city in the frame of Theater der Welt, Germany; GENIUS LOCI, a public installation of domestic lights produced by Brxl Bravo and Wiels; VORREI TANTO TORNARE A CASA, a condominium light show created in Brussels for the Kunstenfestivaldesarts09 and FAR_WESTERN filmed in Khartoum together with Christophe Meierhans and a group of Sudanese artists for Almost Cinema, Ghent.ZimmerFrei, the Bologna-based collective that she co-founded in 2000, exposed at Manifesta07, 50th Art Biennale of Venice, Instituto Valencia de Arte Moderna, Triennale di Milano, ISCP in New York.
Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUikO-h19go
http://www.theaterderwelt.de/en/kuenstler/kuenstler.php