Seminar 43 // 22, 23, 24, 25 January 2014 // London

Curatorial/Knowledge Seminar, January 22-25, 2014

Wednesday 22nd January
6–8pm, Small Hall (cinema), Richard Hoggart Building

Visiting professor Michel Féher:

‘Improve Your Credit: What Human Capital Wants’

Féher’s previous lecture in the series, which took place in November is webcast on the department’s web page, and it might be a good idea to have a look in advance, so you are aware of the development of his argument. http://www.gold.ac.uk/visual-cultures/guest-lectures/
 

Thursday 23rd January
11.00 – 5.00, Prokofiev Room, Library Building
Lunch 1.30 to 2.30

Presentation by Bassam el Baroni

‘Last year I submitted a preliminary proposal around the idea of constituting realities. The proposal looked at the curatorial as a set of practices that could forge or point towards new realities against the backdrop of a transnational political upheaval. At its heart, the proposal had Lyotard’s idea of the differend. Using this proposal as a starting point, I will look at the idea of constituting a reality and how it is tied to different understandings of “the people”. The people is a term that regained visibility during the Arab spring; not delving too much into this aspect of it, I will try to superimpose this term on a proposed ecology of art. How do these different understandings of “the people” finally play into notions of justice? Using my ongoing interest in issues of universality, enlightenment, edification and a more recently developed interest in speculative materialism, I will attempt to untangle some of the connections that emerge.’

Readings:
– Amanda Beech, ‘Curatorial futures with the image: Overcoming scepticism and unbinding the relational’
– Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Re-Writing Modernity’

 Film Screening:
 – Amanda Beech, ‘Final Machine’ (2013)

6.00 – 8.00 Opening of Isaac Julien’s new exhibition ‘Playtime: Kapital’ , Victoria Miro Gallery, 16 Wharf Road.

Friday 24th January
11.00 – 5.00, Prokofiev Room, Library Building

Seminar with visiting professor Michel Féher

The seminar will take the form of a conversation and focus on the following readings that Michel has proposed:

John Maynard Keynes, chapter 12 of the General Theory entitled ‘The state of long-term expectation’; it is a beautiful piece of literature, easy and pleasant to read (except for the very first paragraph, which summarizes previous chapters and can be skipped altogether), and offers a decisive perspective on the logic of financial markets; I am attaching the chapter (it can also be found online) along with an unpublished essay of mine on Keynes (to give an idea of what I am trying to do with the material) and a late and short essay by Hyam Minsky who developed the Keynesian perspective on financial markets’ behavior.

Please make sure you have read the main 2 texts (Keynes and Féher), the seminar will be run initially with questions from Stefan and Irit and will continue with discussion from everyone.

Readings:
– John Maynard Keynes, ‘The State of Long-Term Expectation’
– Michel Féher, ‘Hastening the Decline of Deferred Gratification’
– Hyman P. Minsky, ‘The Financial Instability Hypothesis’

Dinner together
 

Saturday 25th January
12.00 – 5.00, Iniva (Rivington Place, Shoreditch)

Reading group
 
Reading:
– Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, ‘The Undercommons. Fugitive Planning and Black Study”, 2013-14.
 
We will be looking at chapters 2 and 3 of the text. It is online and can be found at
The Undercommons – MinorCompositions, http://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommon...