May 2013
3 posts
Foucault for Sale
reblogged from Foucault News:
Call for sponsorship to buy Michel Foucault’s archives (2013)
13 May 2013 by Clare O’Farrell
Call for sponsorship to buy Michel Foucault’s archives
Paris, 8 May 2013, Art Media Agency (AMA).
The Ministry of Culture sent out a call for sponsorship to French companies in order to purchase the archives of Michel Foucault.
The archives of the French...
Some (nice) thoughts about punishment
On being asked in an interview whether he envisaged a world without prison, Michel Foucault gave the following response:
“The answer is easy: there have been societies without prisons; it was not so long ago. […]
You want me to describe a utopian society where there would be no prison. The problem is to know if we can imagine a society in which groups themselves controlled the...
14th Street: A Photo Essay
Some things that I read when looking for John and Theodor. Welcome to the empire state of signs. Not so much an exercise in psychogeographic framing, wanderlust or rhizomo-nomadic masturbatory drifting as a few badly taken snapshots the juxtaposition of which brought me some brief and mild amusement…
A short exercise in semiology and urbanism.
not necessarily in that order.
If...
March 2013
2 posts
Call for Papers: Common Ground
Common Ground – A Two-Day Conference organized by the Centre for Cultural Studies
24-25 June 2013. Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Call for Papers:
Postgraduates in the Centre for Cultural Studies are pleased to announce their annual conference. This year’s theme is Common Ground and we would like to invite papers, artistic presentations, workshops and panel proposals on all aspects of this...
counter-mapping London
Some maps of London by this year’s Text and Image class. Unfortunately my scanner is broken and the lighting in here lacks a certain studio quality. Have tried not to cut anything off… Will redo - neater, clearer, better when sort out a new scanner.
Thanks to Lara Choksey for the idea.
February 2013
2 posts
3 tags
Orson Welles film season
Curated by Anisha Ahmed, the Centre for Cultural Studies Monday night film will resume on 18 February with a mini Orson Welles season. The line up is as follows:
18 February - Mercury Theatre radio broadcast: The War of the Worlds.
25 February - The Magnificent Ambersons.
4 March - Touch of Evil
11 March - The Trial
18 March - F for Fake
We’ll also be showing some of the Orson...
4 tags
Monday night film - Erasing David (2010)
A documentary about privacy, surveillance and the database state.
After the Child Benefit Office claim they have ‘lost’ his daughter’s details - David leaves her and his pregnant wife to find out how easy it is to get ‘lost’ inside and outside of the system…
Monday 4 February 2013, 6.30pm
The Council Room, Laurie Grove Baths, Goldsmiths.
All Welcome.
January 2013
10 posts
6 tags
This is not a sailboat
Notes from my Monday lecture.
In Kevin Smith’s film Mallrats (1995)there is an ongoing narrative of William’s failure to see the sailboat hidden within a ‘magic eye’ image. The narrative - which punctuates the main story – this functions as comic relief within an already comic tale but what makes William the comic relief rather than a protagonist or antagonist is that...
3 tags
Monday Night Film - The Pillowbook
Postponed from last week, this Monday 28 January, film night will resume with Peter Greenaway’s The Pillowbook (1996). The film will be introduced with a short talk by CCS’s own Theo Reeves-Evison.
6.30pm, The Council Room, Laurie Grove Baths, Goldsmiths. All Welcome.
5 tags
Text and Image - Lecture 3
The Text and Image lecture series continues next Monday 21 January with ‘The Refracted Image’ which currently looks something like this:
More to follow.
11-12, BPLT, Goldsmiths. All Welcome.
7 tags
this is not a signature?
In my Text and Image course as well as in the Research methods class I teach at Goldsmiths, we have been discussing authors, owners, objects, collecting, the museification of the world, signatures, authentication, unravelling and so on.
Today, I received a book in the post - Edward R. Tufte’s Envisioning Information. It is a beautiful, custom-made book (with bits of folded paper and such...
2 tags
Unravelled calligrams
An exercise in drawing words from Monday’s Text and Image class. Send me nominations for the best ones and there’ll be a prize next week.
4 tags
On behalf of all writers...
Tomorrow’s film will be Altman’s The Player (1992). A veritable spiral of self-referentiality. More death of the (wrong) author, Hollywood remakes and alternate endings plus the ultimate opening tracking shot.
6.30pm. The Council Room, Laurie Grove Baths, Goldsmiths.
All Welcome.
4 tags
The font of all knowledge
The most ubiquitous font in the world? CCS film night returns with a documentary about the (benevolent) dictatorship of Helvetica, those responsible for its reign of terror and the pretenders to its throne.
Helvetica (2007, dir. by Gary Hustwit), 6.30pm, Monday 7 January 2013
The Council Room, Laurie Grove Baths, Goldsmiths.
All Welcome.
Monday morning lecture
2 tags
Monday night films (January/February 2013)
The Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths is pleased to announce the schedule for its Monday night films for early 2013:
7 January – Helvetica (dir. Gary Hustwit, 2007)
14 January – The Player (dir. Robert Altman, 1992)
21 January – NO FILM
28 January – The Pillowbook (dir. Peter Greenaway, 1996)
4 February – Erasing David (dir. David Bond and Melissa McDougall, 2010)
The Council Room,...
3 tags
Text and Image 2013
Lectures open to the public. Starting this Monday, 7 January 2013.
11am-12noon. Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Films shown in conjunction with the course will be screened as part of the Monday film night. More details here.
Course Outline:
To present something is always to re-present it, to repeat it, to reproduce it and ultimately to reimagine it. There is no...
December 2012
2 posts
4 tags
It's beginning to look at lot like Lacan
There are a number of pertinent commentaries on Christmas, capitalism and recuperation.
But none perhaps as insightful as these recent critiques:
Who needs the Grinch, Scrooge or Jack Skellington when you can just have a dinosaur shit Christmas?
And at this risk of pissing off Crimebo the clown again, here’s last year’s definition once more:...
4 tags
from Heidegger to Stiegler
first there were technics…
then there were technologies…
while the proliferation of mnemotechnologies in recent decades has inevitably resulted in the impoverishment of intergenerational relationships, making old people feel stupid and useless, it is clear that young people prefer holding remote controls to spanners.
October 2012
4 posts
1 tag
Foucault Circle 2013 - Call for Papers
It’s going to be tough to beat last year’s circle with its trip to Attica and seminar on the GIP documents…
Foucault Circle 2013
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
April 18-20, 2013
Papers on any aspect of Foucault’s work, as well as studies, critiques, and applications of Foucauldian thinking, are welcome. This year’s conference also includes two special...
2 tags
Article 35
Quand le gouvernement viole les droits du peuple, l’insurrection est, pour le peuple et pour chaque portion du peuple, le plus sacré des droits et le plus indispensable des devoirs.
- Déclaration des Droits de l’homme et du citoyen du 24 juin 1793
When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is, for the people and for each segment of the population, the most...
2 tags
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The Great Ejaculator
The Great Accelerator (Polity, 2012) is the latest book by the great ejaculator, Paul Virilio. Of course, by ejaculation I mean an angry, loud exhortation rather than anything of a childishly smutty nature. And indeed, the book - which is an extended rant about how everything is not only too fast but getting faster too fast meaning that WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE - is full of such ejaculations which...
August 2012
1 post
2 tags
Pavement Books - first publication
Beyond Borders edited by John Hutnyk is now out with Pavement Books.
Get your discounted copy here for £11.99 (+ P&P). RRP £14.99.
What would it be to ask critically about, and so reject, the way the border is fixed through property, maps, geography – and to leave a space that is deaf to other movements, transmissions, resonances? Would this work things differently, otherwise?
July 2012
2 posts
3 tags
Postcards from the sandpit
A couple of good points from the sandpit of academia that I meant to repost a while back:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/97725655/Kill-The-REF-in-Complex-Circumstances
Article by Bill Cooke on why the REF is both illegal and immoral and should be killed. The gist of his argument is that 1. If we all already know how our outputs should be ranked (academics are being told not to submit anything which...
3 tags
Gentri-sigh not Gentri-fly
Ah, Waitrose, even with your posh, overpriced pot noodle masquerading as ‘authentic’ Thai street fare you will never be street.
June 2012
5 posts
2 tags
apocalyptic carpet fragments
duvet fragments is more accurate. no sleep until I turn this into a 6,000 word exposition on why all this stuff about the apocalypse is a load of guff.
And here is another kind of carpet apocalypse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap93iAmPfRU
2 tags
Beyond Borders
Pavement Books first offering coming out July 2012. Details about launch party and where to get your discounted copies to follow.
Beyond Borders edited by John Hutnyk
ISBN: 978-0-9571470-0-3
3 tags
Taking Up Space Conference
Cultural Studies Postgraduate Event
25th – 26th June 2012, Centre for Cultural Studies (CCS) / MA in Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London
Conference is free to attend. All Welcome.
Visit the Conference blog here:http://takingupspace2012.blogspot.co.uk/
TIMETABLE
Monday 25th June
9.30 - 10.30
Opening
John Hutnyk
Centre for Cultural Studies
Goldsmiths, University of London...
3 tags
academic narcolepsy
[noun / ak-uh-dem-ik . nahr-kuh-lep-see]
i. a medical condition consisting of the inability to stay awake during any conference or lecture where the words Deleuze, rhizome or deterritorialisation are spoken.
ii. a medical condition where the task of writing an overdue article, essay or book brings on overwhelming lethargy and fatigue.
This seems to happen every time I mention the BwO.
2 tags
psychosemantic
[noun / sahy-koh-si-man-tik]
i. A pathological obsession with meaning
ii. A physical condition which occurs when a writer, academic or researcher has an extended period of time in which to write. Symptoms often involve an overwhelming urge to visit http://badwinona.tumblr.com, clear out a wardrobe or sock drawer, phone one’s parents or watch Grey’s Anatomy. More acute cases can involve a splitting...
May 2012
6 posts
2 tags
carpet fragments #1
Combining Žižek’s cut and paste method with John Hutnyk’s carpet fragments method hopefully by Friday this will be a coherent article on Foucault, theology, power and some other shit.
No access to the toilet or the kitchen until then.
3 tags
Joven y Alocada - film premiere
UK premier of the Chilean film “Joven y Alocada” (“Young and Wild”) in London. The film received the award for the best script at the Sundance Festival.
The event is free and includes a conversation with the director Marialy Rivas.
It will take place on the 31 of May, at 18:00, in Goldsmiths College, University of London, room LG02 in the New Academic Building (NAB).
View the trailer here:...
2 tags
Nyx 7 Launch Party
Nyx, a noctournal invites you to celebrate the forthcoming launch party for Issue 7: Machines. Continuing their twice yearly journal of philosophy, art and cultural studies,this new issue is the biggest and most ambitious Nyx yet, featuring Bernard Stiegler, Luciana Parisi, Michael Taussig, Benjamin Noys and many more great writers and artists sharing their thoughts on things technological....
dress codes 2: oh so street
volumes have been written on what makes streetwear, erm, street. but all it really seems to involve is being vomited on by the 80s. As Joshua Haddow’s research below demonstrates:
reposted from www.vice.com
OMG, YOU GUYS ARE ALL SO STREET! BUT WHAT IS STREET?
By Joshua Haddow
This weekend in a car park in Shoreditch there was an event called Streetfest. At Streetfest there is “street”...
3 tags
Return to the street - conference programme
Conference to be held on 27-28 June 2012 at Goldsmiths, University of London. All conference rooms located in Richard Hoggart Building. Map and directions available here.
Day One – 27 June 2012
9.00-9.40 Registration - Room 150 (ground floor)
9.45 Welcome – Les Back, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths, UK - Small Hall (Cinema) (ground floor)
10.00-11.00 Plenary 1: The Dialectic of the...
2 tags
A decline in standards?
Contrary to popular opinion, the standard of today’s PHD does not lack the quality and rigour of previous decades. Below is more than ample evidence of the continued originality, innovation and richness of material being produced:
April 2012
4 posts
2 tags
films with eggs in them
One of my biggest ambitions is to curate (I use the term loosely) a film series on the theme of eggs.
Only 3 raw eggs? Will have to wait until Rocky 2 for the chicken-chasing scene, though
A work in progress and open to further suggestions. The current list includes:
Airplane!
Earth Girls are Easy
Ai no corrida
Cool Hand Luke
Withnail and I
Rocky
Ghostbusters
Pee Wee’s Big...
3 tags
attica
Some notes on Attica:
Foucault’s trip to Attica was the first time he set foot inside a prison. He visited Attica in early 1972, about a year after the riots in 1971. At that time, the GIP work was well underway. Yet, it is perhaps this trip that constitutes a major turning point in Foucault’s conception of power. In his 1971 lectures, Foucault still adheres to an understanding of...
2 tags
niagara on wax
Possibly the best $7 I will spend on this trip…
A small sample of this veritable box of delights:
I forgot to note who these chaps all are but I was struck throughout the museum by the accuracy of representation of Niagara’s colonial past.
This reenactment of the Devil’s Hole Massacre was brought to life by the slowly turning cartwheel on the left - it really felt as if...
WatchMark Twain in his rocking chair.
March 2012
7 posts
1 tag
2 tags
Foucault Circle 2012 - Programme
This year’s Foucault Circle starts on Friday evening. Programme below:
Foucault Circle 2012, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY
All sessions will be held on the main floor of the Montante Cultural Center.
Friday evening, March 30th
Reception – Time and location TBA
Saturday, March 31st
9-10:45 – Power and Resistance
Moderator: Pär Widén, Malmő University
“Where There is Resistance,...
4 tags
Notes from the vault #4: Leçons sur la volonté de...
Further reflections on Cours du 13 janvier 1971
Check diss
This week more puerile infantilism with the sophists. Some further comments on Foucault’s exploration of the means by which the Sophists came to be excluded from dominant philosophical discourse situating this exclusion within the shift towards a certain mode of truth formation we now associate with scientific and philosophical...
4 tags
Dress codes #1: Attica
I’ve decided to introduce a new feature to the limit experience blog. Dress codes.
Since the self-confessed slipper-wearing semiotician Roland Barthes got hit by a bread van, codes of dressing have become a multi-layered parody, a veritable mise-en-abime in which irony has swallowed itself (for further clarification on this I suggest visiting: ...
5 tags
film night - apocalypse double bill
To mark the end of the Text and Image lecture series at Goldsmiths, we’ll be screening an apocalypse double bill next Monday evening.
Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) followed by Hiroshima mon amour (1959) (screenplay by Marguerite Duras, directed by Alain Resnais).
Monday 19 March 2012
RHB 144 from 6.30pm onwards. All Welcome.
3 tags
More Žižekian than Žižek himself?
I won’t deny that I’m looking forward to the release of SŽ’s latest doorstop of a publication, Less Than Zero. Weighing in at an impressive 1200 pages, this surely ensures his status once and for all as the J.K. Rowling of continental philosophy?
Less a case of first as tragedy, then as farce and more a case of first as farce then as more farce the hyperbole on Verso’s...
3 tags
The New Cross Review of Books →
Latest reviews on NXRB include:
John Hutnyk’s article on Bernard Stiegler’s Taking Care and Technics and Time and a review article from me on Cixous and Irigaray.
February 2012
4 posts
3 tags
Dress codes #3: enjoy your symptom, footlocker
In the aftermath of the trainer wars of the late 80s and early 90s, brands like Nike tried to distance themselves from the carnage with campaigns that focused on the technical functionality of their trainers rather than their street value. Don’t blame us, we just make sports shoes, it’s not our fault kids are stabbing each other over a pair of Air Jordans.
This time around,...
3 tags
film night - perfect sense (2011)
Finally an apocalypse film that doesn’t take place in New York or Los Angeles, doesn’t involve hoards of flesh-eating zombies and swat teams and isn’t concerned with the survival of the nuclear family (crap estranged fathers who need the planet to explode in order to prove their worth à la War of the Worlds and 2012).
Perfect Sense (2011) dir. David MacKenzie, starring Ewan...
