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| [Nettime-nl] STATE OF EMERGENCY - conference |
From: State of Emergency <[email protected]> STATEOF EMERGENCY Territorial Identity in the Post-Political Age Thursday 23rd September 2004, 2 – 8 p.m. Stedelijk Museum CS Amsterdam Presentations by Slavoj Zizek Anselm Franke Boris Buden Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project Office for Metropolitan Architecture Dieter Lesage Introduction and moderation by Lieven De Cauter Organized by the Jan van Eyck Academie in association with theStedelijk Museum CS. STATE OF EMERGENCY = NOW As the information age proceeds, the hegemonic coordinates ofthe present world order are changing in front of our very eyes. Thenation state’s sovereignty is put under pressure by a myriad ofinter-, sub- and trans-national forces. A new and entirely globalizedform of sovereignty emerges, based on the permanent and ever-presentexchange of capital, information and goods. As a result, the constructcalled ‘nation state’ – and its identity – cannot be founded merely ona continuation of values that we have come to think of as ‘sovereign’.Simultaneously, a whole range of ‘single-issue spaces’ and spaces ofexclusion engulf the earth, challenging the political world map to aneven greater degree.Terraincognita =everywhere. Design, architecture, theoryand philosophy are increasingly relevant lines ofapproach as new political, spatial and informational conditions areexplored. Rather than taking on passive or descriptive roles, theygenerate thought-provoking new ideas. Whether it is thetemporary suspension of the juridical order, themapping of a whole range of new political spaces emerging acrossthe earth, the foundation of an international tribunalquestioning the ‘Project for a New American Century’, thedesign of an experimental identity for a law-freemini-state or the re-thinking the visual identity of theEuropean Union, these disciplines are becoming key to animaginative understanding of what territorial identity means today andwhat it might mean tomorrow. State of Emergency – Territorial Identity in the Post-PoliticalAge questions the modern conception of the Europeannation-state, its self-definition and its visual representation.Modern sovereignty – and likewise, identity – has often defined itselfagainst an outside ‘Other’. When the ‘Other’ is lacking, does thisentail that one invents an imaginary ‘outside’ of one’s own in orderto secure an even more imaginary inside – as is the case with the‘Axis of Evil’, the hostile ‘Other’ that the West has conceived? Andwhat about a trans-national entity that merely manifests itself inoverweight politicians shaking hands on television? How is thetransformation of the former Eastern bloc affecting Europe’s identity– and vice versa? What is the meaning and impact of ‘single issuespaces’, tax and internet havens, camps, states of exception andmicro-nations? Do new conditions produce new symbolic realities andimages? By bringing together architects, designers, academics,theorists and curators, State of Emergency aims totrigger off inspiring insights into the relevance of territorialidentity today. PROGRAMME Thursday 23rd September 2004 12 noon – Registration 2.00 p.m. – Welcoming note: Jouke Kleerebezem 2.05 p.m. – Introduction: Lieven De Cauter 2.15 p.m. – Lectures: Slavoj Zizek, Anselm Franke, Boris Buden 4.30 p.m. – Break 5.00 p.m. – Lectures: Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project, Office forMetropolitan Architecture, Dieter Lesage 7.15 p.m. – Break 7.30 p.m. – Panel discussion moderated by Lieven De Cauter 8.00 p.m. – End >From 10.00 p.m. onwards – Club 11 party PRACTICAL INFORMATION Admission Tickets at € 7,00 All tickets can be picked up and paid for at the main entrance –ground floor of the Stedelijk Museum CS on 23rd September from 12 noononwards. Registration (advance booking is recommended) Please use the online registration form to book your tickets prior to22nd September. See registration form: http://www.janvaneyck.nl/%7esealand/form/ Contact Madeleine Bisscheroux, Jan van Eyck Academie [email protected] +31 (0) 43 3503729 Location Stedelijk Museum CS (Club 11, 11th floor) Oosterdokskade 5 1011 AD Amsterdam The Netherlands How to get there The Stedelijk Museum CS is a few minutes’ walk from AmsterdamCentral Station. Please check at www.stedelijk.nl/ orwww.bereikbaar.amsterdam.nl/ for a route description. More informationis available at www.amsterdam.nl/ Further information www.janvaneyck.nl/ www.stedelijk.nl/ www.metahaven.net/ www.janvaneyck.nl/sealand The Speakers Slavoj Zizek is philosopher, cultural theorist and professor atthe Institute for Social Sciences (Ljubljana). Slavoj Zizek will speak about:’Theright of those who were missed by thebombs’,in which he takes up a recent NBC debate on the Abu Ghraib scandal. The prisoner’s right to live was forfeited by being legitimate targets of bombings. He is now a case of what Giorgio Agamben calls ‘homosacer’, the one who can be killed with impunity since, in the eyes of the law, his life no longer counts. We encounter here the logic ofemergency state gradually pervading life. Zizek is one of today’s most significant interdisciplinary thinkers. His work is apowerful, often explosive combination of psychoanalytical andphilosophical concepts. His books includeDidSomeone SayTotalitarianism? (2001)andWelcome to the Desert of theReal (2002).He is currently writing a book on the war in Iraq. Anselm Franke is curator andcritic (Berlin). Anselm Franke will present hisIslandsand Territoriesprojects.Franke’s research results shows that our world is increasingly beingfragmented into issue-related enclaves:Islands,Camps andOther States ofUtopia,which all surpass the solid borders of the nation-state. He willpresent new and previously unpublished case studies, which furtherrelate to the European Union. The exhibitionTerritories(2003) was curated by Franke in collaboration with Eyal Weizman, RafiSegal and Stefano Boeri, and was initially shown at the KW Institutefor Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2003), Witte de With (Rotterdam, 2003)and at the Malmö Konsthall (2004). Boris Buden is a writer andcultural theorist (Berlin). Boris Buden’s concepts of a culturally andpolitically divided Europe permeate his writings on the formerYugoslavia, Western Europe and the USA. An activist in the Yugoslavianpeace movement, Buden founded the journalArkzin(1993) and published the first Croatian new edition of theCommunistManifesto(1998). He participates as a scholar inThePost-Communist Condition,a research project led by media critic Boris Groys, Center for Art andMedia (ZKM), Karlsruhe. Buden will relate his expertise to theshifting territories and demographics of post-communist societies, towhat was formerly called the Eastern bloc. The Meta Haven: Sealand IdentityProject is a Dutch design project in charge of aresearch-driven national identity for the world’s first ‘data haven’and Europe’s smallest nation-state, the Principality of Sealand.Amsterdam-based graphic designer Daniel van der Velden,initiator of the project, will present the design team’sresearch and proposals. Having existed in the North Sea close to theUnited Kingdom since September 1967, Sealand is an internationallyrenowned legal test case regarding sovereignty, connected toinformation networks through its internet hosting services, existingon the borderline of traditional sovereignty, piracy and ‘Empire’. TheMeta Haven project has developed new strategies for Sealand’sidentity, exposing it as a complex web of instable signifiers. Designteam: Tina Clausmeyer, Vinca Kruk, Adriaan Mellegers, NextArchitects. The Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project issupported, hosted and financed by the Jan van Eyck Academie,Maastricht. The Office for MetropolitanArchitecture (OMA) is an architectural officefounded by Rem Koolhaas. At this conference Reinier DeGraaf will present parts of OMA / AMO’s research of the€-conographyproject. During their branding process for the European Union, OMA /AMO unveiled an ‘iconographic deficit’ in the visual identity of theexpanding EU, an impasse in the representation of a dynamic andemerging political entity. Parts of the€-conographyproject were shown as part of OMA / AMO’s recentexhibition Content(2004). The office most notably created a new European flag, showing acoloured barcode that refer to the national flags of the Europeannation states, replacing the twelve gold stars. Dieter Lesage is philosopher and lecturer at theRITS / Erasmushogeschool (Brussels). Dieter Lesage will speak about‘Resistance,Identity, Europe’andtackles issues such as: Should Europe be resisted? Or is Europe ourmain hope for any resistance at all? Should Europe be proclaimed‘post-political’ even before it really gets political? Or should werather consider the history of the European Union to date as itspre-political prelude? Should ‘identity’ be the banner of ourresistance? Is there a European ‘iconographic deficit’, as RemKoolhaas argues, or is the logo-centrism andbrandingby think tanks such as AMO something we would better do without?Finally, Sealand: why it fascinates us more than it should... Lieven De Cauter is philosopherand lecturer at the University of Leuven (K.U. Leuven) and at the RITS(Brussels). Lieven De Cauter’s introductory statement is partiallybased on his forthcoming bookThe CapsularCivilisation. On the City in the Age ofFear (2004).De Cauter is co-founder of theBrussels Tribunal2004, People vs. Total WarIncorporated,an organization that publicly questions the new imperial world orderas it was launched by the Bush administration under the title ‘Projectfor the New American Century’. De Cauter moderates the paneldiscussion. -------------------------------------------------------- Jan van Eyck Academie Academieplein 1 6211 KM Maastricht Nederland e [email protected] t +31 (0)43 350 37 37 f +31 (0)43 350 37 99 w www.janvaneyck.nl -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- K i m T h e h u director's assistant Jan van Eyck Academie Academieplein 1 6211 KM Maastricht Nederland e [email protected] t +31 (0)43 350 37 37 f +31 (0)43 350 37 99 w www.janvaneyck.nl --------------------------------------------------------
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