<<back

Post - conference

::a mobile platform for sharing knowledge::

  • :: Post - conference ::

    Reminiscing Aristotle’s thought that the world exists as an imprint in our mind and therefore everything is an interpretation, brings us to a belief that every sharing and showing of these interpretations can become a performance, including the process of learning.

     

    Looking through the history of institutions, comparing schooling space and noticing its similarity with a theatrical or a religious space (as all of them, the ideological apparatus of the State) is unavoidable. The Teacher/ the Master/ the Priest is assigned the role of an actor in front of the “audience” - the students, the followers and believers.

     

    Instead of following the usual forms of supreme phase of educational process (University) where the main figure-form of concentrated knowledge is known as conference (an hour or sometimes longer one-man show “performance” is given by a “Subject supposed to know” - Professor/Philosopher/Master)- our proposal would follow a different concept which combines various elements of learning into a more mobile form which we call Post- Conference: an experimental form of egalitarian sharing of knowledge.

     

    Anything that is experimental can not be fixed, it is alive and therefore it is in a constant transformation. Inspired by Rancière’s idea that equality is not a destination, a Post-conference is not reaching to achieve equality but instead suggests equality as a starting point where everyone is welcome to participate. A space open to intervention of each participant, including Jacques Rancière as equal participant, where the individual and the collective can be redefined through a shift of roles and through an altered following/ order of events. A form where interruptions, repetitions, questions, tracing back and forth, recapitulation and creativity are allowed. Where time is not an agent forcing one to “catch up with the studies” and focus solely on pre- assigned production, but where time becomes a multi-leveled dimension allowing one to freely share and develop the individual material, inspired by the participation in a collective process.

     

                 

    Post-conference can become a practice in stretching and erasing the borders pre-decided by history of schooling. A time in space where each one is an emancipated spectator who could, but is not obliged, to share her process of translation. Post-conference is a search for a new "Pedagogical Poem", beyond the one of Anton Makarenko.

     

  • :: How? ::

    The organisation of a Post-conference takes place at the end of an “open class” period of minimum two weeks titled “Art is Knowledge”. In this open class, members from our collective merge together with the students/ participants into:

    A) a research period of translating and interpreting theoretical texts/philosophical concepts around the idea of emancipation as a tool in creating different approach to education

    B) listening, choosing and editing sound material from different periods of conversations with Rancière on topic of:
    B . a) movement of art and thought vs immobility (Post-conference, December 2014, Academy of Fine arts, Brussels)
    B . b) new material specially conceived for every new creation.

     

    Starting from hypothesis that art is knowledge and that it could become an eligible practice not only in art-schools but in education in general, together with the participants we look for points in common between the artistic and the scientific process. With a focus on the emancipatory discourse of Jacques Rancière (but also using examples of other artists and thinkers on the topic of emancipation) searching, gathering and developing material throughout the open class period enables to collectively create a score/structure of the contents for the Post-conference event.

     

    The event itself becomes a kind of a public exposition of the open class process. The proposed score by the participants will serve as a guideline but is not meant to be presented as a fixed product in neither time, nor in its following of events. Instead it is agile to intervention, interruption by anybody at any moment. By interventions we mean any form of re-reading, re-listening a text, to an instant outburst of creativity as a movement, a mathematical formula, a sound, a question towards a participant. By interruptions we mean any sort of reflection, reaction and intervention. Depending on the stamina of the participants, the time frame of a Post- conference may vary, which is also why we insist on the liberty to decide by each individual to leave, take a pause or re-join at any moment. Even if we as a collective cannot predict the exact outcome of the Post- conference experience, we can't resist our desire that it lasts throughout the whole night, making it a real Phd in one night temporality.

    In the usual coordinates of the contemporary liberal world, scientific (expert) knowledge is strictly separated from the artistic one. Moreover, art is not seen as knowledge but rather as a subjective profession of an extreme choice that most parents would not recommend to their children since it is not included as a “lucrative” profession on the promising list of the labor market (featured, like a hypnotic pendulum, in the current Bologna educational reform).

    As opposed to the capitalist approach to knowledge and education which correlates with the market and has preferential treatment to commercial professions as its final consequence, in the countries that previously experienced state and/or self-government socialism (from where several members of this research come from) the attitude to art and artistic work/knowledge was the same as the attitude to any egalitarian work/knowledge: the artist was someone who worked in the sphere of culture, which was, in turn, part of the universal transformation of social conditions: towards a society of emancipation and equality.

    Our research strives to bring back artistic knowledge on this path.

  • :: Material ::

    The following texts and thoughts have greatly inspired People Coming from Nowhere. Each Post-conference goes through different theoretical and artistic texts which are proposed as the base for “one night” dissertation. Whether completely new, or sometimes retaking already used texts for further or alternative approaches, all material will find its way to this page.

    This is a place where most of the text material will be stored, making it possible for anyone willing (even if not participating in the preparatory Open Classes) to attend and participate in a Post-conference event.