Sandra Sykorova and Sarah Sparkes present
"One-to-One with Recessional Aesthetics"
as part of a one day event organised by no.w.here
Sunday October 17th
at James Taylor Gallery
Collent Street (just off Well Street) 2pm - midnight
Bring some food, join the dinner and discussion.
You will be called for your 'one-to-one' with Recessional Aesthetics
Sarah and Sandra
‘Recessional Aesthetics’ was a discursive event organised by no.w.here (founded by artists Karen Mirza and Brad Butler) at the James Taylor Gallery in Hackney, Sunday 17th October, 2pm - 12 pm.
One of the large rooms of JTG, a not-for-profit exhibition space established by two artists in a large sprawling, multi-roomed warehouse in Hackney, was set out with a long dining table and looking like cross between a communal canteen and a bourgeoisie dinner party. Around the table sat different thinkers and makers presenting ideas, films, performance, readings all designed to open discussion related to the economic, political, and social implication of the forthcoming cuts. Throughout the questions raised included “how we are working in the Arts?, how have we worked?, and how are we expected to work?”
The event was free to all, but participants and guests were asked to bring food to the table, invited to sit down to dine and to contribute to on-going discussions which were both fed by and fed into the content of the program of presentations.
For the full duration of the event, in the far corner of a room adjacent to the main dinner and discussion , artists Sandra Sykorova and Sarah Sparkes’ created a space for a more personal discourse during a ‘Recessional Aesthetics One-to-One’.
On arrival, guests were given number cards. Periodically and at the push of a button a number screen in the dinning room generated random numbers. The number holder was then invited to join one of the artists in the back room for a ‘one-to-one’.
The ‘one-to-ones’ took place at a small dinner table where those selected where invited to sit upon a toilet and choose a ‘question dish’ to their taste then spending time discussing this topic with one of the artists. The questions were written upon a stack of paper plates and taken from many current sources of thought and writings about the roles of art, artists, aesthetics and economics. The responses were recorded on a typewriter by the artist acting as a scribe to create a documentation of the ideas exchanged.
The interviewee sat upon a white porcelain toilet, a reference to Brunel’s film ‘phantom of liberty’ the title of which is a homage to the opening sentence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto ("A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism"). On another level the aesthetics of this performance, also referenced the dis-empowering, bureaucratic approaches of institutions and the recourse to humour that often occurs during times of hardship. Paradoxically, the content of the exchange in this absurdist setting, was largely passionate, empowering and humane. The interviewee and interviewer feeling a sense of conclusion, discussions always ending by mutual agreement.
some of the responses from participants of the ‘one-to-ones’ will be posted on a 'one-to-one' blog coming soon!:
One of the large rooms of JTG, a not-for-profit exhibition space established by two artists in a large sprawling, multi-roomed warehouse in Hackney, was set out with a long dining table and looking like cross between a communal canteen and a bourgeoisie dinner party. Around the table sat different thinkers and makers presenting ideas, films, performance, readings all designed to open discussion related to the economic, political, and social implication of the forthcoming cuts. Throughout the questions raised included “how we are working in the Arts?, how have we worked?, and how are we expected to work?”
The event was free to all, but participants and guests were asked to bring food to the table, invited to sit down to dine and to contribute to on-going discussions which were both fed by and fed into the content of the program of presentations.
For the full duration of the event, in the far corner of a room adjacent to the main dinner and discussion , artists Sandra Sykorova and Sarah Sparkes’ created a space for a more personal discourse during a ‘Recessional Aesthetics One-to-One’.
On arrival, guests were given number cards. Periodically and at the push of a button a number screen in the dinning room generated random numbers. The number holder was then invited to join one of the artists in the back room for a ‘one-to-one’.
The ‘one-to-ones’ took place at a small dinner table where those selected where invited to sit upon a toilet and choose a ‘question dish’ to their taste then spending time discussing this topic with one of the artists. The questions were written upon a stack of paper plates and taken from many current sources of thought and writings about the roles of art, artists, aesthetics and economics. The responses were recorded on a typewriter by the artist acting as a scribe to create a documentation of the ideas exchanged.
The interviewee sat upon a white porcelain toilet, a reference to Brunel’s film ‘phantom of liberty’ the title of which is a homage to the opening sentence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto ("A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism"). On another level the aesthetics of this performance, also referenced the dis-empowering, bureaucratic approaches of institutions and the recourse to humour that often occurs during times of hardship. Paradoxically, the content of the exchange in this absurdist setting, was largely passionate, empowering and humane. The interviewee and interviewer feeling a sense of conclusion, discussions always ending by mutual agreement.
some of the responses from participants of the ‘one-to-ones’ will be posted on a 'one-to-one' blog coming soon!:
http://www.no-w-here.org.uk/
Schedule
From 2pm - midnight
Sandra Sykorova and Sarah Sparkes
Recessional Aesthetics: one to one
"Workers Playtime" by Simon Bookish
2pm
William Raban
The Fiction of capitalism: The potential for an exponential decline?
2.30pm
David Graeber
Debt: the First Five Thousand Years
3.15pm
Oliver Rees
Address to Congress.
4pm
Ellie Harrison, Rachel Pimm and Edward Dorrian
Risk, responsibility and public money
5pm
Lutz Becker, Karen Mirza, Brad Butler
The Aesthetics of Resistance
15 minute break
6pm
Stefano Harney
For most people the crisis has just begun…
6.45pm
Maxa Zoller and Claire Tancon with William Cobbing
Processional Aesthetics
7.45pm
Alana Jelinek and John Reardon
De-schooling society
8.45pm
Dean Kenning and Paul O Kane
The Inoperative Community
9.30pm
Matthew Stone/Cedar Lewisohn
Interconnected Echoes/The Gut Club
10.15pm
About Now MMX by William Raban:
film screening: 27 mins.
It is certain that we are all currently engaging in personal and sometime public conversations around the arts and the cuts and what to do in the face of the dramatic changes that are in motion. We are witnessing different strategies of mobilisation across the breadth of cultural production and we know that the arts are not alone, the public sector as a whole is to be cut and as such we all have different questions and pressures we are asking of ourselves on fundamental levels.
In this light this event is proposed as a frame for exchange at James Taylor Gallery. As you may know James Taylor Gallery is not a traditional gallery space, it is best described as an artist occupation of a 25,000 sq foot space in the East End awaiting finance for its planning permission for conversion to luxury flats. In the meantime the gallery is an artist run live work space that sites exhibitions whilst facing a rolling 2 month notice of eviction. We felt this a fitting space for discourse combining a vast space, the gallery's fragility, and the context of a group exhibition that will not only stretch over the Government announcement of the cuts - but also the weekend of Frieze.
This invitation is to attend and participate in Recessional Aesthetics; a durational, discursive event produced, staged, and facilitated by the context of the space and the conditions of our present moment. This will take place on Sunday 17th October from 2pm - 12 pm and is to be sited around a long dining table, a cross between a commune (communal) dining hall and a (bourgeoise) banqueting dinner. Around this table on the hour different thinkers and makers will open a discussion in relation to the economic, political, and social implication of the forthcoming cuts. Whilst different individuals will lead each hour according to a schedule - the forms of such a participation are free and may take the form of people / collectives conversing, cinematic interventions, readings, or performed works. Time keeping will be upheld by sonic interruptions on the hour from the series “workers playtime” in homage to the radio series started in 1941 “to keep up the morale of the workers”. Throughout the questions raised will include how we are working in the Arts?, how have we worked?, and how are we expected to work? So the day will act as a durational discursive event, a coming together of individuals as part of a collectivity operating in the threshold of the public and the private, an image, a staging and an active discussion.
Your discourse is welcome. You are free to sit down, eat, and to join the discussion. We ask only that you bring a food offering for the table.
... a thought must be coarse to find its way into action. Bertolt Brecht
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