[Nettime-ro] Discussions about Politics and Design, Ze Dos Bois, Lisbon

[Cosmin Costinas <cosmincostinas2004@yahoo.com>]

Discussions about Politics and Design

Ze Dos Bois, Lisbon, September, 20-21, 2007.

Conferences on the occasion of the finissage of
Societe Realiste's
Transitioners exhibition.


Participants: Eric Alliez (Paris), Vicken Cheterian
(Geneva), Cosmin Costinas (Vienna), Jose Neves
(Lisbon) and Olivier Schefer (Paris).

Ze Dos Bois is currently presenting the exhibition
Transitioners, a project by the Paris-based artistic
cooperative, Societe Realiste.
Transitioners is a trend design agency specialized in
political transitions. Transposing the principles of
prospective design, generally used by "fashion trend
agencies", to the field of politics, Societe Realiste
questions the revolution (transition?) as a central
category for the contemporary western society.
Transitioners surveys the mutations of the revolution
as a form. How a "democratic transition" can be
produced?
What is the role of design in the permanent conversion
of politics into mythology? How the effect of an event
on people can be transformed into a controlled affect?

On the occasion of the exhibition's finissage, Ze Dos
Bois and Societe Realiste presents a conferences and
debates program, entitled
 "Discussões
a propósito de política e design".


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2007, 7pm.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i/ INTRODUCTION.
By Societe Realiste

Societe Realiste will introduce the participants of
these discussions and reformulate some key points of
the Transitioners project, from its genesis to its
main aesthetical and political perspectives. Some
topics to be discussed during the two-days conference
will be synthetized, from the
problematics of an artistic science to an experimental
approach of design, from the necessity of
understanding the main integration strategies of Late
Capitalism politics to some linkage between different
chapters of the recent history of political
revolutions.


ii/ GREY WEATHER AT LA GRANDE JATTE : SEURAT VERSUS
DUCHAMP.
By Eric Alliez

(In French) « The most important scientific mind of
the 19th century,
 more
than Cezanne, was Seurat, that died at the age of 32."
This specific
affinity felt by Duchamp for Seurat will be the center
of this
presentation. Another important question will be the
Seurat's
contradictory heritage, especially in the
confrontation between Matisse
and Duchamp. In Modern art, there is this point that
is not related to
pictural Modernism but on the contrary, through forces
and forms, to an
archeology of the contemporary, of which Matisse and
Duchamp are
 precisely
the two fundamental paradigms.

Eric Alliez is a philosopher, professor at Middlesex
University,
 London,
since 2004. Scientific director and editor of the
complete works of
Gabriel Tarde (Empêcheurs de penser en rond/Le Seuil,
Paris) and
 Gilles
Deleuze, Immanence et vie (with Danielle
Cohen-Levinas, Françoise
 Proust,
Lucien Vinciguerra, PUF, Paris, 2006), creator and
co-editor of the
 review
Multitudes. His most recent books are La
Pensée-Matisse (with
 Jean-Claude
Bonne, Le Passage, Paris, 2005) and Lâ??Å?il-Cerveau
(with Jean-Clet
 Martin,
Vrin, Paris, 2007).


iii/ THE COMMUNIST INVENTION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY
MILITANT.
By Jose Neves

The representation of the communist militant is the
result of a one
century-long creative work. In Portugal, this process
has been
 accentuated
in the end of the 30s and has been strengthen by the
recognition of
 PCP,
at the beginning of the 40s. This communication
strategy has been the
occasion of melting various sensibilities that formed
the communist
 idea
of the revolution. While analyzing the discurses of
communist
intellectuals - and more particularly historians' ones
- we will see
 how
two main understanding, the vanguard one and the
common one, have
 created
a productive tension, now possible to encounter in the
writings of
 authors
like Toni Negri and John Holloway.

José Neves is an historian. Currently finishing a
thesis about
 Communism
and Nationalism in 20th Century Portugal at ISCTE, he
has recently
coordinated the collective book Da Gaveta para Fora -
Ensaios sobre
Marxistas (Afrontamento, 2006).


iv/ MYTHOLOGY AND INSTRUMENTALIZATIONS OF THE ROMANIAN
REVOLUTION.
By Cosmin Costinas

The autumn of 1989 was the spectacular moment needed
by the already
unleashed liberal machine to proclaim a grand finale
before entering
 the
age of unshattered expansion and disbelief in any
possibility of social
change. The almost ritualistic and choreographed
nature of that autumn
 was
nowhere more striking than in the case of the Romanian
revolution. The
radical proclamation of the end of a political
construction employed
 both
a highly symbolic scenario of "the revolution"
haunting the modern
European imagery (with the occupation of the public
space, where the
public space is understood as streets and central
squares, the storming
 of
a palace climaxing in a regicide), as well as a
scenario of a
media-generated reality. The act of the king leaving
his palace was
doubled by an equally significant moment, that of a
contested and
 confused
Ceausescu at the balcony of his palace, failing to
grasp the codes of
 the
"live history", exposing himself as the product of a
pre-media regime
 of
reality and allowing a media story to take over. But
the dozens of
 hours
of tape that constitute the Romanian revolution have
also aquired an
uncanny status of a founding mythology, random
gestures and spontaneous
phrases becoming projected as the ultimate references
for the Romanian
second republic.

Cosmin Costinas is a writer and freelance curator,
born in Romania. Currently he is Coordinating Editor
of documenta 12 magazines (Vienna/Kassel). His texts
have been published in magazines and publications in
North America, Europe, Asia and he has lectured in
institutions and universities in Europe and China. 


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2007, 7pm.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

v/ FROM SERBIA TO KYGYZSTAN, COLOR REVOLUTIONS AND
REBELION IN A NEW
 CENTURY.
By Vicken Cheterian

"Color Revolutions" raised a strong hope. They turned
out to be a
deception. All of them had their specific history,
their own
 biographies.
The youth went to protest for different reasons, to
reach distinct
objectives. What did the youth in Serbia want in 2000?
In 2003 Georgia?
 In
2004 Ukraine and in 2005 Kyrgyzstan? What did "they"
promit them? After
some years, are these countries more democratic? Were
they the beginning or the end of non-violent
pro-democratic westernized revolutions? Are the
jihadists the revolutionnaries of the 21st century? Is
the revolution a solution for the problems of our
societies, in the East, in the West?

Vicken Cheterian is a journalist, specialized in
international politics. Born in Lebanon, he has
covered conflicts in the Middle East, then in Caucasus
and Central Asia. Currently living in Geneva, he is
working for Cimera, a non-for-profit organization, and
he is a frequent collaborator of Le Monde
Diplomatique, Paris.


vi/ ART AND REVOLUTION: ZIGZAGS INTO COLOURS.
By Olivier Schefer

Weâ??ll try to see how and why color seems to be the
very expression of
 the
artistic revolution of the modernism. This lecture
will endeavour also
 to
reflect on the self-construction of the modernism,
which creates its
 own
mythology through colors. Following aspects will be
studied : the quest
 of
autonomy, the spiritual dimension of colors, the
exhibition as artwork.

Olivier Schefer is professor of aesthetic, philosophy
and fine art at
 the
University of Paris I Sorbonne. He works on the
romantic period and its
modern influences. Latest pulications : Anish Kapoor
catalogâ??s
 (Svayambh,
éditions Fage, Paris, 2007), Les corps du retour
(Zombies), in Fresh
Theorie (éd. Léo Scheer, Paris, 2006), Résonances
du romantisme
 (éd. La
Lettre volée, Bruxelles, 2005).


vii/ SUMMING UP: ATTEMPT OF A FRAGMENTARY HAGIOGRAPHY.
By Societe Realiste

To conclude the two-days public discussion, Societe
Realiste will try
 to
summarize some of the main points debated between the
participants, by
linking modernist stakes of the colour (Alliez,
Schefer), examples of
political transitions (Cheterian, Costinas, Neves) and
the core
problematics of the Transitioners project. Then,
Societe Realiste will
open the conversation on a critical hagiography of
some stakes of the
Revolution Mythology by using several examples such as
the ones of
 Saint
Thomas More or Olinde Rodrigues.

Societe Realiste is a Paris-based artistic cooperative
created by
 Ferenc
Grof and Jean-Baptiste Naudy, that manages the
development of several
research and economical structures such as a
laboratory for the study
 of
urban signs (IGM), an immigration agency (EU Green
Card Lottery), a
 trend
design bureau specialized in political transitions
(Transitioners), an
administration dedicated to the politics of the space
(Ministere de
l'Architecture), a legislative consulting firm, expert
in competitive
 and
sustainable lawmaking (Cabinet Societe Realiste
Conseil), a
counter-biennial (Manifesta 6.1), a company designing
marketing models
 for
the contemporary art field (PONZI'S), or a collective
finance fund for
individual projects (OTC).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
More info: www.zedosbois.org / zdb@zedosbois.org
With the support of Instituto Franco-Português; Chama
Vermelha;
 Instituto
das Artes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++




       
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