On the occasion of the release of the new publication Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement, Alauda Publications presents a one-day symposium about the legacy of the artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973) and its relevance for contemporary artistic practices. Along the line of two thematic approaches relates to Smithson’s practice, “Art & Ecology” and “The Cinematic Condition”, topical concerns in artistic practice of the 1970s are reconsidered by internationally renowned theorists and artists. The symposium will also include the official book launch.

The Art & Ecology panel will critically consider the various meanings of ‘ecology’ as well as the rhetoric of ‘sustainability’, recognizing these buzzwords as deeply political, contentious and ideological, and will ask what we can learn from Smithson’s and other historical artistic practice when conducting a critical investigation into the current relationship between art, ecology and sustainability. The discussion will be lead by our own Sven Lütticken and contributors include art historian T.J. Demos and artist Nils Norman, among others.

The Cinematic Condition panel will focus on Smithson’s use of various media, leading to a highly mediatized form of perceptual experience, and especially on his use of film. This panel asks how examining Smithson’s legacy might provide us better insight into current artistic positions concerning the cinematic condition and spectatorship in art. To what extent do the set of institutional, technical and cultural parameters that determined the cinematic condition of post-minimal art, and Smithson’s work in particular, coincide with or, alternatively, diverge from our present? The discussion will be lead by Eric de Bruyn and contributors include art historians Ann Reynolds and Sabeth Buchmann, among others.

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Coordinates
Rethinking Robert Smithson
Friday, March 30 | 10:00 – 17:00
Royal Academy of Arts (KABK), The Hague
Admittance: € 15 / € 7,50
programme & registration

Publication
Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement
Ingrid Commandeur & Trudy van Riemsdijk-Zandee (eds.)
with contributions by Max Andrews, Eric C.H. de Bruyn, Stefan Heidenreich, Sven Lütticken, Anja Novak & Vivian van Saaze
Alauda Publications, 2012

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As announced earlier this month, Julia Bryan-Wilson will lead a VAMA research seminar and give a public lecture on February 20. Her research on a marker for a nuclear waste dump site will be the main focus of discussion.

Julia Bryan-Wilson is Associate professor at the History of Art Department, University of California (Berkeley). Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art, in particular post-war American, Latin American and European art, feminism, queer theory, performance, craft histories, video, art in the nuclear age, and collaborative practices. Her book Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era was published in 2009 and was named a “best book of the year” by Artforum magazine.

The visit and talk of Julia Bryan-Wilson is a co-organization with Extra City Kunsthal Antwerp, where she is giving a talk on Saturday February 18 within the frameworkof the project Residence Reading Room by the artists Kathleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans. More information about this project can be found here.

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Coordinates Research Seminar
Monday February 20
VU University, room 12-A10
15:00 – 17:00

Coordinates Public Lecture
Monday February 20
VU University, room 08-A04
18:00

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Below, you can see an interview with Stefaan Vervoort and Joana Meroz on the occasion of their 2010 participation in the exhibition DNKTNK 2010.

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First of all, there’s tonight’s Métamatic Artist’s Lecture by Aleksandra Hirszfeld. Entry to these lectures is still free, but do send a short email to paul@allartinitiatives.org. As always, the lecture will take place at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam and will start at 20:00. More information can be found here.

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After his visit to VU University for an Art Criticism Seminar on February 8th, artist Paul Chan will also make a stop at the Oude Lutherse Kerk (UvA Aula) in Amsterdam. On February 9th, he will give a joined lecture with Hito Steyerl. This is the fourth lecture within the Facing Forward series and will focus on Future Freedom.

All information on timing, tickets and prices can be found at www.facingforward.nl

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On Friday February 10th, you can choose between the first part of the annual Licht op Italië symposium (programme) at VU University or a lecture by UvA’s Rachel Esner entitled Visiting the Studio with l’Illustration in Utrecht, organized by OSK. (more)

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On Monday February 20th, we are again welcoming an international scholar for a reading seminar and a public lecture at the VU. Julia Bryan-Wilson from the History of Art Department, University of California – Berkeley, will join us to discuss her research on a marker for a nuclear waste dump site.

The programme of the afternoon is the following:
15:00-17:00 : reading seminar ‘Building a Marker of Nuclear Warning’
18:00 : public lecture Monumental Forecasting
(rooms to be announced)

The visit and talk of Julia Bryan-Wilson is a co-organization with Extra City Kunsthal Antwerp, where she is giving a talk on Saturday 18 February within the framework of the project Residence Reading Room by the artists Kathleen Vermeir and Ronny Heiremans. (more)

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Finally, on Friday the 24th, VU’s Professor of English Literature Diederik Oostdijk will give his inaugural lecture entitled De New York-Amsterdam Connectie. Over literatuur en transnationalisme in een visuele tijd. The ceremony will take place at 15:45 in the Aula (main building, 1st floor) and will be followed by a reception.

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VAMA collects all events organized in the context of the (research) master programme. It includes reading seminars, symposiums organized at the end of a course, information days, thesis presentations, excursions, …

Related Events gives a selection of events organized by or in collaboration with our staff, students or alumni. It also tries to include other events that our students might be interested in, but it is far from a complete cultural calendar.

All Events gives an overview of everything listed in the above two categories in an easy calendar format, but without the links to extra information.

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To start you off, here’s February’s calendar:

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On February 8th, Sven Lütticken will receive Paul Chan for a reading seminar. The seminar serves as a prelude to the course Art Criticism but is open to all students.

The session will centre on four texts by Paul Chan – “What Art Is and Where it Belongs”, “The Unthinkable Community”, “A Lawless Proposition” (all available via e-flux) and “The Spirit of Recession” (available via Chan’s homepage). Students will have the opportunity to engage with Chan on the matter of these texts, and special attention will be directed at the role of writing in Chan’s artistic practice.

Coordinates
Wednesday, February 8th
16:00
VU University, room 08-A13

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more Upcoming Events >>

more Course Information >>

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The Visual Arts, Media & Architecture research master programme kindly invites you to attend the lecture An Untimely Tinguely: History, Aesthetics, Possibilities by Prof. Dr. Jae Emerling, on Tuesday December 20th.

Jae Emerling is the first Métamatic Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Arts of the VU University Amsterdam, a research fellowship funded by the Métamatic Research Initiative. “An Untimely Tinguely: History, Aesthetics, Possibilities” will be the concluding lecture of Prof. Emerling’s visiting professorship in the Fall of 2011 at the VU, during which he taught a Master Seminar entitled “Tinguely and Transmissability”.
Jae Emerling is an assistant professor of modern and contemporary art at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte where he teaches in the College of Arts + Architecture. He holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the intersection between modern and contemporary art and critical theory, particularly as it is embodied in the photographic image. His publications include two books Photography: History and Theory (2011) and Theory for Art History (2005).

Coordinates
Tuesday December 20th, 18:00
VU University (room 08A04)
De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam

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In 2009 the Métamatic Research Initiative set out to investigate Jean Tinguely’s exploration of the relationship between the artist, the art work and the viewer as expressed in his Métamatic sculptures. Last winter eight artists have been commissioned to undertake artistic research. The artists are now halfway through their projects and will speak in Amsterdam about their art and their commission during the autumn of 2011 and the spring of 2012.
In addition to the artist’s commissions, the Métamatic Research Initiative funds a three-term visiting Professorship programma the Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam in the period 2011-2012. The programme is aimed at stimulating and connecting research into the relationship between art and technology after World War II in general, and the work of Jean Tinguely in particular. Three grants have been awarded, respectively to Jae Emerling (University of North Carolina, US; Fall 2011), Emily Scott (Independent scholar, US; Spring 2012), and Susan Holden (The University of Queensland, AU; Fall 2012).

More information regarding the Métamatic Research Initiative is available at www.metamaticresearch.info and www.let.vu.nl, as well as on this website.

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more Upcoming Events >>

more Métamatic Lectures >>

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Filed under: Lecture, Photography, VAMA, Visual Art ]]> http://visualartsmediaarchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/closing-lecture-jae-emmerling-tomorrow/feed/ 0 visualartsmediaarchitecture http://visualartsmediaarchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/hannah-arendt-seminar-closing-session/ http://visualartsmediaarchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/hannah-arendt-seminar-closing-session/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:43:12 +0000 visualartsmediaarchitecture http://visualartsmediaarchitecture.wordpress.com/?p=1049 ]]> **

This weekend, our student are busy wrapping up the research seminar Hannah Arendt’s The Crisis in Culture: It’s Social and It’s Political Significance in Berlin. On Saturday, November 19th, General Public is hosting the closing gathering, organized by Jeremiah Day and including a final seminar, a dinner and a party.

General Public is pleased to host the closing event for this yearlong project exploring the intersection between Hannah Arendt’s work and cultural practice: a flowing evening of informal presentation, discussion and exchange.  After an April seminar in London, the May General Public series, and now an autumn of work in Amsterdam, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s key text on culture will close with reports from participants of the different aspects, and presentations of ongoing research projects underway around the text from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

The work of the German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt is widely acknowledged in contemporary social and political debates, and yet her unique understanding of the inter-relationship between cultural practice and the polis has been largely overlooked. “The Crisis in Culture: It’s Social and Political Significance,” published in 1961, was Arendt’s contribution to the debates of her time concerning avant-garde and kitsch, high and low culture. This fiftieth anniversary serves as an occasion to take up this text, explicate and elaborate upon it, bringing Arendt’s ideas into dialogue with the questions faced in contemporary thinking on art and politics.

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Programme
-    17:00 – Introduction & Research Project Presentations – An opening talk by Jeremiah Day followed by: Roel Griffioen on the hopes and realities of Amsterdam post-war urbanism; Francesca Lacroce on the immigrant artist; Svea Juergenson on public art as memory and amnesia; Angela Bartholomew’s comedy on the rhetoric of art-funding; and publication launch from Vincent van Velsen, dealing with philistinism at the Louvre.
-  18:30 – Report from London and Amsterdam – reflections from the artist Marina Stavrou who uniquely attended both the London seminar as well as the reading group this fall in Amsterdam.
-    19:00 - Dinner (Korean food from Core – PLEASE RESERVE)
-   20:00 – Which Text? – Speculations on the different versions of Arendt’s culture essay – moderated by Jeremiah Day, featuring Sumarty Schiffer, Vincent van Velsen and response by Jesse Van Winden and Evelyn Austin.
-   20:30 – Arendt in Berlin, Again – Michael Schultze and Jeremiah Day will reflect upon the May seminar at General Public, with response by Gertrud Sandqvist.
-    21:00 – Closing Party

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Coordinates
November 19th, 17:00 – open end
entry free and open to the public
dinner will be offered for 8 Euro. please reserve via golebreadinggroup@hotmail.com

General Public
Schoenhauser Allee 167c
10435 Berlin
U2 – Senefelder Platz
http://www.generalpublic.de

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more Upcoming Events >>

on Research Seminars >>

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Afterwards, from 18:00, Nora Alter will hold a public lecture entitles Composing in Fragments: Music in the Essay Films of Resnais & Godard.

Looking forward to welcome you all during the seminar and at the lecture.

The recent issue of Kunstlicht, dedicated to Mediality, again featured some articles by promising VAMA students. We have chosen two and added them to our Student Papers section!

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to Student Papers >>

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