Open Call - vocabulaboratories
July 7th, 2008vocabulaboratories
www.vocabulaboratories.net
Call for participation: two workshops in 2008
vocabulaboratories is an ongoing project initiated by Paz Rojo, Anja Kanngieser and Manuela Zechner. It consists of a series of laboratory spaces for working on self-made conceptual vocabularies, collectively as well as individually. The project runs throughout 2008/09. We would like to invite you to the two labs in 2008:
13/10 - 18/10: How do we articulate spaces for action?, at Steirischer Herbst festival, Graz/A
01/12 - 06/12: Instituting spaces/making space in institutions, at PAF, Reims/F
13/10 - 18/10, Graz/A
How do we articulate spaces for action?
How can we make what we do (whether in theory or in practice) articulable and effective? How and when does working with concepts - beyond disciplinary boundaries - create new spaces for action? And how can we critically convey these possibilities?
vocabulaboratories is a long-term, collaborative project that works with individual and collective vocabularies. We take “vocabularies” to be tool-boxes based on ideas and strategies, with the aid of which we position ourselves in the world, try to understand ourselves and explore our possibilities for action.
The focus of this workshop - one stage of ‘vocabulaboratories’ - is on the spaces of meaning opened up by our own vocabularies and through the concept of ’strategy’. Our guests will contribute the notions of ‘empowerment’, ’survival’ and the ‘common’, from their respective perspectives - arts, architecture, philosophy, social work. We will go from practice to theory and back again, taking our concepts to facilitate research and interventions in public space, enter into conversation with local socially committed organizations and question our engagements, from a philosophical as well as strategic point of view.
Organized by: Manuela Zechner and Paz Rojo
With: Ludotek (ES), Judith Revel (F), Judith Schwendtner (A)
As part of Steirischer Herbst festival Graz
More information and to apply: www.steirischerherbst.at
Deadline for applications is July 20th 2008
The festival can give support for travel costs as well as grants where urgently needed. There is a fee for this workshop (120€) which includes a festival pass for all exhibitions, performances, lectures etc, as well as lunches and drinks, and our forthcoming project publication. We would like to enable people in financially precarious positions to come, and are happy to negotiate individual solutions with people - please write to us if you’d need support in order to come.
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01/12 - 06/12, Reims/F
instituting spaces / making space in institutions
How can we find or make space to address our (individual and collective) desires and problems? Can we think of the making (and yielding) of space (a room, a building, a space for action or thinking, a laboratory, a meeting, a dinner…) as a form of practice? What problems and limitations do we encounter through this, and how can we creatively work with those constraints? How might we think about such practice, its organization and sustainability?
At the same time, we are all implicated in institutional frameworks in one way or another (schools, galleries, theatres, hospitals, NGOs) and struggle with as well as benefit from the ways in which those institutions are configured. How do we make spaces in existing institutions - what strategies can we work with in order to negotiate spaces for our ideas and practices in this case?
These two aspects of spatial and instituent practice will be considered through the following two perspectives:
• Instituting a space. To find a space that can be made into an institution, to invent an institution and its space. The Performing Arts Forum near Reims is an example of this: its founder, Jan Ritsema, will spend a day with the lab group to address the desires, reasons and also pragmatics underlying his process of setting up PAF. We’ll be working within the space of PAF, trying to understand it from different perspectives throughout the week.
• Making space within an institution. To find a space within an existing institution, which allows us to address problems and work around our own questions and desires. The university could be an example of such an institution; in what ways do we invent and install spaces for ourselves, to work collectively, address problems, think? Some examples of spatial production from within institutions could be understood through: student politics, the founding of clubs, discussion evenings, common rooms, unions. In our proposals, space refers to a material as well as a social and mental framework.
Carla Bottiglieri will take a novel by Robert Walser as point of departure to ask the question: “how can be inhabit institutional spaces without becoming subject and object to the power relations they operate by?”. Her entry on “Un-power” addresses possible strategies for relating to power by slipping under it, escaping its call. As a performer, somatic movement educator (BMC) and researcher, she will address this from various angles.
Organized by: Paz Rojo and Manuela Zechner
With: Jan Ritsema (NL/F), Carla Bottiglieri (F)
Held at Performing Arts Forum Reims, F
For more information about staying at PAF, go to www.pa-f.net
Free and open to all
Deadline for registrations (send us an email): 31st October 2008
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Forthcoming publication: vocabulaboratories
A print vocabulary with some 27 entries by different people, to be given away for free at workshops/labs and elsewhere - write to us if you would like to get hold of a copy.
Sher Doruff - a vocabulary of doing / Anja Kanngieser - non-specialisation / Stephanie Lusby - cultural mobility / Rodrigo Nunes - intervention / Paz Rojo&Manuela Zechner - entry/ Committee for Radical Diplomacy - radical diplomacy / Ann Cotten - bullshit / Carla Bottiglieri - Un-power / Simon O´Sullivan - fictions / Jan Ritsema - politics of aesthetics / Critical Practice - C/critical P/practice / Peter Pal Pelbart - bare life / Judith Schwendtner - small town / Diego Gil- intensity / LISA - Lisa / Igor Dobricic- Trace / Ludotek- Empowerment / Paz Rojo&Ricardo Santana - Reply/ Manuela Zechner&Anja Kanngieser&Paz Rojo- Movement / Manuela Zechner - self-train / Anja Kanngieser - militant research / Bojana Kunst - frame/framing / Tom Groves - fidelity, faith, belief / Fernando Broncano - testimony / Lawrence Liang - voice and vocabulary / Judith Revel - Common
Edited by Manuela Zechner and Paz Rojo
Co-editor: Anja Kanngieser
Made possible by LISA with the support of Nederlands Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten, NL
For more information about the project go to the website: www.vocabulaboratories.net
Contact: info@vocabulaboratories.net