We have organized a Congress here. Why? What reason can there be for artists, the freest, most independent people in society—people who live like "the lily of the field"—to come together, organize themselves, and undertake theoretical discussions?
—Asger Jorn (1956)
Camel collective (aka. CAMEL, aka. Camel Collective Collective) would like to invite you to attend The Second World Congress of Free Artists, Aarhus as part of the exhibition Modifications curated by Karin Hindsbo at the Aarhus Kunstbygning Saturday 20 November, 2010, 11:30-17:30.
This congress resuscitates the First World Congress of Free Artists, Alba, in 1956, a meeting of the Lettrist International and the Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus.
The Second World Congress will consist of a performance of speeches by
The parts of these participants to the Second Congress will be performed by actors. For example, Carlos Motta will appear as a 17th Century Jesuit Priest; Mary Walling Blackburn’s address may take the form of an olfactory transmission; Jakob Jakobsen might hold forth in the body of a 19-year-old single mother; Mónica Castillo's voice might be distributed among body of students; and Colin Lang's speech emanate from a block of wood.
Each speaker will address the audience with a speech on the historical, practical, and theoretical problems of institutional and counter-institutional pedagogies as we live them today. In a potential exchange of positions between the roles of sender and receiver in traditional education, the speeches aim to mark and transcend worn-out models of pedagogy, opting instead for playful and performative modes of knowledge production.
Camel
c/o Aarhus Kunstbygning
J. M. Moerks Gade 13
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
t. (+45) 51808892
t. (+45) 51153251
t. (+45) 27303792
Aarhus Kunstbygning
J. M. Moerks Gade 13
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark
Michael Ashkin, Zachary Cahill, Iza Mortag Freund, Wanda Jakob, Ari Godwin Kollontai-Hartz, Zaki Nobel Mehabil, Vivi Nielsen, Rosa Sand Michelsen, Mikkel Trier Rygaard, and Javier Toscano.
15.00–17.00 Saturday October 30, 2010
Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17, Copenhagen
An evening of screenings and a performance that will examine popular representations of pedagogy using film segments, a reading, and our collective intoxication.
The four members of the Camel Collective intend this event as an analysis of the representations of pedagogical situations in film clips and will draw attention to the possible consequences of the standardization of arts education in Europe. Following the classical tradition of the Greek symposia, spirits will be used as a means to lubricate and pace the conversation. Toastmaster Nina Søs Vinther will interrupt the proceedings at regular intervals as the voice of the Bologna Agreement and its plans to “harmonize the architecture of the European Higher Education system.”
After the classical tradition of the symposia, wine (replaced here by the more potent and more Scandinavian akvavit) will be used as lubricant to pace the conversation. In contrast to the eloquent orator of antiquity (i.e. the Greek symposiarch, or the traditional Georgian tamada), our toastmaster will interrupt the screenings and conversation at regular intervals with recitation from the less-than- eloquent Bologna Accords.
Camel is currently in residence through a grant from the Danish Arts Council (DIVA). For this residency we proposed a performative event, the Second World Congress of Free Artists, Aarhus to be held at the Aarhus Arts Building in November. Both the Congress and Howls for Bologna proceed from our interest in performative speech and appropriation, and in the multitude of ways knowledge can be produced and conveyed as affect and information.
