the Cooper Union School of Art Interdisciplinary Seminar
Mar
8
Irit Rogoff
Participation - A User’s Guide co-hosted through e-flux Journal
6:30 pm | Rose Auditorium
This presentation tries to veer away from the inclusive prescription that characterizes the so called ‘participatory turn’ in contemporary art—in which protocols were created to invite subjects into projects and spaces. Instead the presentation asks: What does it mean to take part in a culture beyond the roles that social habit allows? If participation is not directed from above by artists , curators and institutions - how then does it come about ?
By looking to the work of Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben and Jean- Luc Nancy, the interests of community and collectivity in art can be fleshed out through the concept of ‘singularity’ rather than that of identity. Such engagements with the blurring of lines between makers, viewers, objects and spaces has required the development of an alternative vocabulary to capture the shifting relations between art and its meanings.
About Irit Rogoff
Irit Rogoff is a theorist, curator and writer. She is Professor of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths, and has published extensively at the intersections of critical theory, politics and contemporary arts practices including “Museum Culture” 1996, “Terra Infirma” 2001, A.C.A.D.E.M.Y 2006 and “Unbounded - Limits’ Possibilities” 2010. Her curatorial work included 3 versions of “De-Regulation with the work of kutlug ataman” (Antwerp2006, Herzilya 2008, Berlin 2010) and Academy (Eindhoven 2006) and “Summit - Non Aligned Initiatives in education Culture” Berlin 2007 and e-flux journal 2010.