[artinfo] ARTSPACE CULTURAL DIVERSITY CONFERENCE EVENT - JULY 2001
artspace2
artspace@artspace.org.au
Tue, 29 May 2001 13:01:05 +0200
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ARTSPACE IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE A CRITCAL CONFERENCE EVENT TAKING PLACE IN=
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JULY 2001. CONVENED BY NICHOLAS TSOUTAS + NIKOS PAPASTERGIADIS. A=20
CONFERENCE INITIATIVE DEVELOPED BY NICHOLAS TSOUTAS.
GLOBALISATION + ART + CULTURAL DIFFERENCE: ON THE EDGE OF CHANGE
THIS MAJOR CONFERENCE EVENT INVOLVING 6 INTERNATIONAL AND 10 AUSTRALIAN=20
SPEAKERS WILL RETHINK STRATEGIES FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY INTO THE FUTURE.
SPEAKERS
RASHEED ARAEEN
NIKOS PAPASTERGIADIS
COCO FUSCO
GERARDO MOSQUERA
FAZAL RIZVI
IEN ANG
SNEJA GUNEW
PAUL CARTER
GHASSAN HAGE
CARLOS CAPPELAN
JOHN CONOMOS
LINDY LEE
RICARDO DOMINGUEZ
JEAN FISHER
MARCIA LANGTON
HETTI PERKINS
DATES
FRI 27, SAT 28 + SUN 29 JULY 2001
VENUE, BOOKINGS AND FURTHER INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS EMAIL
SESSION AND SPEAKER DETAILS
Friday 27July
Session 1 - 7.30 pm
Introduction
Nicholas Tsoutas Director, Artspace
Keynote Lecture
Rasheed Araeen
COME WHAT MAY: Beyond the Emperors New Clothes
This paper discusses the affects of globalisation and multiculturalism on=20
visual art practice in Britain. I will examine 'multiculturalism' as a=20
global phenomenon and its commodification on the basis of 'difference' as=20
part of the emergence of global capitalism and its art market; and then=20
offer, tentatively, a radical alternative vis-a-vis art practice to the=20
prevailing obsession with the identity riddled narcissism of the infantile=
=20
ego. I've pretty harsh words to say about those who think globalisation is=
=20
a positive development that gives other cultures an opportunity to express=
=20
themselves as part of worldwide cultural dialogues. For this conference, I=
=20
would like to explore, historically, the multiculturalism of art in the=20
20th century, and would argue that multiculturalism was the foundation=20
stone of modernism which emerged with Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,=
=20
and which changed the whole perception of art from iconography=20
representation of visible world to total abstraction. It was this=20
multiculturalism on the basis of which the modernism of western artists was=
=20
able to claim its universality. However this universality based on the=20
appropriation and assimilation of the other by the dominant discourse faced=
=20
a challenge when the other entered modernism in its own right as a subject=
=20
confronting its eurocentric ideology. Unable to come to terms with this=20
challenge, which would have given modernism's multiculturalism true=20
universality, eurocentrism had to cover up this unresolvable embarrassing=20
situation by erecting a wall of deception in the form of its concern for=20
the right of other cultures and their own self-expressions. This concern=20
has now been legitimised by postmodernism with its emphasis on the=20
subjective self, which must carry signs of its racial, ethnic or cultural=20
origins in order to be recognised as an authentic subject. With=20
globalisation and its demands for a greater variety of cultural goods for=20
its market, this subjective self, unable or unwilling to see or go beyond=20
its subjective conditions on the pretext of self-expression, has succumbed=
=20
to these demands. The basis of the discourse of recent Multiculturalism,=20
which is an antithesis of modernist multiculturalism, is the so-called=20
diasporic conditions and experiences of the post-war migrants which,=20
including African Americans, do not exceed 100 millions, which is 1.6% of=20
world population. How can this discourse based on the experiences of such a=
=20
small minority be considered representing the condition of the world? The=20
subjective condition of the large majority of world population is not their=
=20
displacement or uprootment but the exploitation of their resources and=20
resulting world poverty. In fact the discourse of multiculturalism is the=20
discourse of a privileged class whose privileges derive from the economy of=
=20
global capitalism and its power to reduce anything to reification and=20
commodification. The alternative to this dehumanising development, I would=
=20
argue in my paper, is to look outward, turning our gaze away from the=20
(alienated or disturbed) inner self to the life at large and make art as=20
part of its transformational processes. The new art will thus emerge away=20
from the centres of power, away from the decadence of media sensationalism,=
=20
to produce conceptual models for the affirmative actions and the positive=20
advancement of human society as a whole.
Rasheed Araeen is an artist, writer and Founding Editor of Third Text.=20
After pioneering minimalism of sculpture in Britain (1965), he moved on, in=
=20
the early seventies, to make works which dealt with questions of racism and=
=20
imperialism and their role in maintaining the white genealogy of art=20
history. His main text in this respect, 'Preliminary Notes for a Black=20
Manifesto', was written in 1975-76 much before the emergence of=20
postcolonial critical theory. A selection of his early writing was=20
published entitled 'Making Myself Visible, in 1984. Among his many other=20
activities, he has curated 'The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-war=
=20
Britain', held at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1989. Recently he has=20
been awarded international patent for an invention.
Saturday 28 July
Session 2 - 9.30 am
Keynote Lecture
Nikos Papastergiadis
Rethinking Cultural Identity
In this paper I will present an account of the available models for=20
understanding cultural identity. My aim is to establish a sense of the=20
parameters of the consensus and the definitions and theories of cultural=20
identity, and to test these models in light of current global pressures and=
=20
the influence new media relationships. In particular, I will be examining=20
the limitations of the debates which are confined to either absolutist or=20
relativist perspectives, and developing a new typology which draws from the=
=20
work of Stuart Hall.
Nikos Papastergiadis is head of The Centre for Ideas, Victorian College of=
=20
Arts, University of Melbourne. He is a writer on contemporary art and=20
cultural theory. His books include, Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in=
=20
the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000). He has just=20
completed a new book called Topographies: Art, Place, and the Everyday,=20
which is to be published by Rivers Oram Press.
Session 3 - 10.45 am - 1.15 pm
Globalisation
What are the forces that are producing new levels of interconnection and=20
rupture across the world? What is the impact of new media technologies on=20
the dissemination of culture? Are they enabling more symmetrical forms of=20
exchange or repeating the existing forms of cultural domination?
Chairperson Cecelia Cmielewski
Speakers
Gerardo Mosquera
Alien-Own/Own-Alien. Notes on Globalisation and Cultural Difference
The lecture will analyse the interaction of opposite tendencies toward=20
homogenisation and difference in contemporary art and culture as a result=20
of globalisation. It will consider situations of power and displacement,=20
processes of diversification of the international metaculture, cultural=20
syncretism, and dialogic strategies. Significant examples from African and=
=20
Caribbean poetry will be examined as metaphors for the problems under=20
discussion. These examples will also underline historical changes in the=20
transcultural paradigms of regions with strong ethnic dynamics.
Gerardo Mosquera (Havana, 1945) is a freelance curator and art critic based=
=20
in Havana, Adjunct Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York,=
=20
advisor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldenden Kunsten, Amsterdam, and member=
=20
of the advisory board of several art journals. He was a founder of the=20
Havana Biennials, and has curated many exhibitions, including "It's Not=20
What You See. Perverting Minimalism" (Madrid, 2000), "Important &=20
Exportant" (2nd. Johannesburg Biennale, 1997), Ante America (Bogota,=20
Caracas, New York, San Francisco, San Diego...,1992-1994). Author of=20
numerous texts on contemporary art and art theory, Mosquera recently=20
participated in "fresh cream" (London, 2000), edited "Beyond the Fantastic:=
=20
Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America" (London, 1995), and is=20
currently co-editing "Over Here. International Perspectives on Art and=20
Culture" (working title) for the New Museum/MIT Press series "Documentary=20
Sources on Contemporary Art".
Fazal Rizvi
Rethinking Hybridity, Multiculturalism and the Arts
This paper will critically examine the notion of hybridity as it has been=20
used in many recent writings on multiculturalism and the arts. I will argue=
=20
that while the idea of Hybridity is a useful antidote to culturally racist=
=20
essentialism, it cannot in itself provide the answers to the difficult=20
questions concerning the political economy of hybridisation: how hybridity=
=20
takes place, the forms it takes on in particular contexts, how it is used=20
to promote particular economic interests, the consequences it has for=20
particular sections of the community, and when and how particular hybrid=20
formations may be progressive or regressive. I will suggest the need to=20
articulate an understanding of hybridity with the issues of hegemony and=20
neo-colonial power relations within the patterns of global cultural=20
consumption.
Professor Fazal Rizvi is Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) at RMIT=20
University in Melbourne, Australia. He has an extensive record of=20
achievement in international education. In 1998, he established and=20
directed Monash Centre for Research in International Education. Born in=20
India and educated in India, Australia and the UK, Professor Rizvi's PhD is=
=20
in Philosophy and Education from Kings College London. He has published=20
extensively on theories of globalisation, the internationalisation of=20
curriculum, issues of cultural diversity, the arts and public policy, as=20
well as the politics of Australian engagement in Asia. His most recent=20
books include a co-authored volume, Educational Policy and the Politics of=
=20
Change (Routledge 1997), two co-edited volumes, Disability and the Dilemmas=
=20
of Justice and Education (Open University Press 1996) and Culture,=20
Difference and the Arts (Allen & Unwin 1994). Professor Rizvi has served on=
=20
a number of government bodies including the Australia Council (1992-95),=20
the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Committee on Ethnic Affairs (1994-95)=20
and the Australia Foundation for Culture and the Humanities (1995-1998). In=
=20
1996, he was the President of the Australian Association of Research in=20
Education.
Ien Ang
TRANSLATING LIVES, BLURRED IDENTITIES Cross-cultural communication in a=20
globalising world
How can 'unity in diversity' and the 'celebration' of cultural diversity -=
=20
so common in the rhetoric of contemporary multicultural society - cease to=
=20
be mere facile formulas? This paper will address the complexity of=20
communicating across borders in a world in which the coexistence of=20
different realms of meaning, value and cultural expression has become an=20
intrinsic part of everyday life. The paper revisits popular terms and=20
metaphors to describe this situation, such as hybridity, migrancy and 'the=
=20
borderlands', and will look seriously and critically at their implications=
=20
for our approach to cultural diversity. The paper advances the idea of=20
'living in translation' in our attempt to develop a genuinely=20
cross-cultural practice, marked simultaneously by an insurmountable=20
difference between cultures and an interminable drive to build bridges.
Ien Ang is Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the Institute for=
=20
Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney. She recently=20
co-edited _Alter/Asians: Asian-Australian Identities in Art, Media and=20
Popular Culture_ (Pluto Australia, 2000). Her next book, entitled _On Not=20
Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, will be published by=20
Routledge later this year.
Session 3 Plenary/Discussion
LUNCH BREAK 1.15 - 2.15 pm
Session 4 - 2.15 - 5.15 pm
Institutionalism
Can multiculturalism challenge the way we understand governance and alter=20
the conception of nation states? What are the ways institutions - at=20
national, local, and micro levels - affect the structures for representing=
=20
difference? Has multiculturalism been restructured to fit the new=20
disclosure on managerialism?
Chairperson Dr. Mary Zournazi
Speakers
Sneja Gunew
Multicultural Sites/Practices of Un/Homeliness.
In the introduction to his book The Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha,=20
drawing on Freud's famous essay 'The Uncanny', speaks of the 'unhomely', as=
=20
that "ambivalent structure of the civil State as it draws its rather=20
paradoxical boundary between the private and the public spheres ... The=20
unhomely moment relates the traumatic ambivalences of a personal, psychic=20
history to the wider disjunctions of political existence." Canadian=20
cultural critics such as Himani Bannerji, Dionne Brand, Roy Miki and=20
NourbeSe Philip speak about the ways in which Black and Asian artists and=20
writers have in various ways been excluded from Canadian culture, have felt=
=20
themselves unable to participate fully in the public sphere. Using these=20
concepts and those relating to 'spatial entitlement' (De Certeau, Hage), I=
=20
plan to look at the tactics employed by particular groups who grapple with=
=20
cultural notions of 'belonging' in various ways. In particular I will=20
explore specific migrant groups in Vancouver who are termed or,=20
alternatively, self-identify as 'Asians' and the ways in which they make=20
their presence in the city felt through forms of cultural production (e.g.=
=20
literature, video, art, etc.) and how they locate and produce a sense of=20
belonging and at-home-ness in the different parts of the city. To explore=20
these concepts I may focus on two sites in Vancouver. The first is the=20
Video-In/Out (www.video-in.com) which describes itself as a "not for profit=
=20
video production, exhibition and distribution centre operated by and for=20
independent video makers, experimental video artists, and media/community=20
activists." The second 'site' is the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop=20
(www.asian.ca) which produces a newsletter Rice Paper and acts as a=20
clearing house and resource centre for Asian Canadian (as well as linking=20
with Asian American) writers. I may also refer to the Transculturalisms=20
project which will explore notions of m=E9tissage, creolization and the=20
impact of 'mixed-race' issues on contemporary Canadian arts practices.
Sneja Gunew has taught at various universities in England, Australia and=20
Canada. She has published widely on multicultural, postcolonial and=20
feminist critical theory and is currently Professor of English and Women's=
=20
Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has edited (with=
=20
Anna Yeatman) Feminism and the Politics of Difference and (with Fazal=20
Rizvi) Culture, Difference and the Arts. Her most recent book is Framing=20
Marginality: Multicultural Literary Studies and she has just completed a=20
book length study Multicultural Sites in a Transnational Era: Bodies,=20
Communities, Nations. Her current work is in comparative multiculturalism=20
and in diasporic literatures and their intersections with national and=20
global cultural formations using theoretical frameworks deriving from=20
postcolonialism and critical multicultural theory. She is the director of=20
the three-year Transculturalisms/M=E9tissage project being co-ordinated by=
=20
the International Council for Canadian Studies.
Paul Carter
'The Ersatz of Difference'
As nation states multiply their Ersatz economies and cultures, they display=
=20
their inner contradiction. A claim to local autonomy depends on access to=20
global markets. Historically, this is the burden of federal theory: to=20
imagine trans-national systems of government predicated on non-hierarchical=
=20
relationships between parts, and hence to erode the edges of the=20
nation-state. This critique produces (at least in theory) new modes of=20
political and social discourse, localisms that cannot be mapped to a global=
=20
template. Differences continue to differentiate themselves in unpredictable=
=20
ways. Stemming from the experience of my "federal artwork" Nearamnew=20
(Federation Square, Melbourne, 2001), these propositions are explored in=20
relation to the emergence of a non-territorialised but localised poetics.
Paul Carter, is a writer/artist, professorial research fellow, The=20
Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. Recent publications: Depth of=20
Translation, the book of Raft (with Ruark Lewis), Lost Subjects (both 1999)=
=20
and True Clairvoyance, art, migration, place (forthcoming). Recent=20
artworks: Relay (Olympic Coordination Authority, Homebush Bay, Sydney, with=
=20
Ruark Lewis, 1999-), Nearamnew (Federation Square Public Art Program,=20
Melbourne, 2001-), The Terraces Project (North Terrace Precincts=20
Redevelopment Project, Adelaide, 2001
Ghassan Hage
The Neo-Liberal Aesthetics of Australian Multiculturalism
Australian Multicultural Policy has always been multifaceted. Two commonly=
=20
acknowledged elements are multiculturalism as 'cultural policy' aimed at=20
the promotion of cultural pluralism and multiculturalism as 'social policy'=
=20
aimed at promoting non-English speaking migrant's inclusion. While the=20
first is seen to concern cultural institutions such as the media and the=20
arts, etc... the second is seen as part of the welfare state. It has been=20
often rightly argued that the decline of the welfare state has led to a=20
dominance of the discourse of cultural pluralism and cultural identity over=
=20
the discourse of socio- economic rights. In this paper, I argue that there=
=20
is a further, increasingly apparent, split within cultural pluralism=20
itself. It is a divide between what we might call cultural pluralism for=20
ourselves and cultural pluralism for others. I show how this split has been=
=20
produced through the integration of cultural pluralism with an=20
aestheticisation of urban space that is part and parcel of the government's=
=20
neo-liberal politics. What results is a multiculturalism directed at=20
attracting foreign investment. I examine the nature and the ramifications=20
of this phenomenon.
Ghassan Hage teaches anthropology at the University of Sydney. He is=20
currently working on an ARC supported trans-national ethnographic analysis=
=20
of Lebanese migration in Sydney, Melbourne, Philadelphia, New Bedford,=20
Caracas, Paris and Cameroon. He is the author of White Nation, Pluto Press,=
=20
Sydney 1998 and Routledge, New York 2000. He is also the editor of the=20
forthcoming Arab- Australians: citizenship and belonging, Melbourne=20
University Press, Melbourne 2001.
Session 4 Plenary/Discussion
Sunday 29 July
Session 5 - 10.00 am - 1.00 pm
Translation
Under what conditions can signs and symbols communicate across cultural=20
boundaries? Is translation possible or inevitable in a multicultural=20
context? What is the effect of new media technologies in the translation of=
=20
culture?
Chairperson Dr. Glenda Sluga
Speakers
Carlos Cappelan
"I would like to say a few words before I talk"
"An intellectual performance and/or an enacted academic talk about=20
political diversity (and also about cultural strategies dealing with issues=
=20
of representation)"
Presence and representation: representations as social facts and social=20
facts as bearers of symbolic meaning in the debate of a global political=20
field. Has the notion of the "real" changed our perception of power? This=20
will talk about political diversity and specific cultural strategies as=20
seen from the horizon of the Bergen fiord.
Born in South America (Uruguay) and living in the Nordic Countries since=20
1973, professor at the Bergen Art School in Norway and currently based in=20
Spain, CC has shown is work internationally in one-man shows as well as in=
=20
group-shows & biennales (Havanna, Johannesburg, Kwang-Ju, Site Santa Fe,=20
San Paulo, MERCOSUR, etc). His works deals widely with issues of=20
representation and plays with the notions of identity of the artwork, the=20
artist, the audience and the institution or the context in which he acts.=20
Mainly installation-based, the projects don't exclude other means of=20
expression such as paintings, writings or performances.
John Conomos
New Media, Culture, Identity
This paper will critique the present spurious claims that are still being=20
made in popular and academic discourses of the new media technologies in=20
terms of their radical implications for cultural and social transformation.=
=20
It will focus on the highly volatile configurations evident in the complex=
=20
relations of ethnicity, "race" and representation that inform new media,=20
theory and everyday life. Critics such as Iain Chambers, Sean Cubitt, and=20
Kevin Robbins, amongst others, have suggested that new media technologies=20
are problematically valorised in so far as they provide a continuing basis=
=20
for the virtual appropriation, control and manipulation of the world. We=20
will delineate new alternative perspectives, agendas and issues relating to=
=20
the ongoing rationalistic and technocratic idealisation promoting the new=20
technologies. Crucially we need to explore how the new media may renew or=20
expand our ways of seeing, looking and watching in the context of the=20
cultural, the social and the temporal. The new media technologies have to=20
be discussed not in terms of mastery and transcendence but how they figure=
=20
in our cultural lives and social space and what kind of psychic investments=
=20
we make in visual culture and experience. This means going beyond the=20
familiar debates of vision and modernity and investigating the intricate=20
and mobile connections between the new media technologies and the actual=20
"wordly" circumstances (Edward Said) of contemporary cultural production.=20
It also signifies questioning Western binarism and universal categories and=
=20
valuing cultural difference (in all of its myriad complexities), migrancy,=
=20
marginality and trans-generic experimentation in the new media art forms in=
=20
order to criticise the new orthodoxies of technoculture and " the mantras=20
of multiculturalism" (Homi Bhabha) that still unfortunately characterise=20
certain discourses of "othering" that we are becoming familiar with by now.
John Conomos is a media artist, theorist and critic who teaches film and=20
new media studies at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.=20
Conomos's videotapes and installations have been extensively exhibited=20
throughout Australia and overseas. He is a frequent contributor to art,=20
film and media journals and has, over the years, participated in numerous=20
conferences, festivals and seminars concerning cinema, the new media and=20
the visual arts. Last year Conomos was awarded a Two Year New Media=20
Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. He has recently=20
co-edited (with Brad Buckley) the forthcoming anthology Republics of Ideas=
=20
(Pluto Press) and is currently working on an autobiography and a collection=
=20
of his critical essays. He also recently wrote a new radiophonic work=20
"Cinema of Solitude " (in collaboration with composer Robert Lloyd) on the=
=20
French filmmaker Robert Bresson for ABC Radio National.
Lindy Lee
Cycles through a Chinese Landscape
In 'Cycles Through A Chinese Landscape', Lindy Lee will discuss notions of=
=20
selfhood as changing aggregations of experience that, in her case, include=
=20
both Eastern and Western influences. As an artist, her on-going concerns=20
are the relationship between copies and originals in connection to notions=
=20
of authenticity, selfhood and Zen Buddhism. Lee will also relate how some=20
of these issues have directed her community development work with the Asian=
=20
Australian Artists Association
Lindy Lee is a Chinese - Australian artist who was born in Brisbane but has=
=20
based in Sydney for the past 20 years. Currently she teaches at Sydney=20
College of the Arts and is Vice President of the Asian Australian Artists=20
Association. She has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally=20
and her work in included in most major public Australian collections. Some=
=20
significant exhibitions include Perspecta '85 AGNSW; Origins, Originality=20
and Beyond Biennale of Sydney, 1986; Edge to Edge: Contemporary Australian=
=20
Art to Japan, touring Museums of Contemporary Art in Japan=20
1988/89;Australia Beyond the Mundane: Australian Art to China, 1988;=20
Paraculture, Artistspace New York; Strangers in Paradise: Contemporary=20
Australian Art to Korea, 1992; Prospect'93 Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany;=
=20
Photography is Dead, MCA, Sydney 1996; Spirit and Place, MCA, Sydney, 1997=
=20
and Bright and Shinning, Australian Embassy, Tokyo 1999
Ricardo Dominguez
Mayan Technologies and Networked_Activism
This presentation will cover the astonishing development of new=20
communication technologies has opened up new forms of connection for=20
cultural activism. From RTMark, to Sarai (Delhi), to Radio B92 (Belgrade),=
=20
to Digital Zapatismo and the Independent Media Centers (Seattle,=20
Washington, Austin), to the net-based health activism of groups such as=20
Medecins Sans Frontieres, a burgeoning network of artists and activists=20
linked across the globe is refiguring cultural and political space. Using=20
new and old media technologies, they are developing new connections and=20
strategies, overturning old hierarchies and providing fluid alternatives to=
=20
cumbersome institutions.
Ricardo Dominguez is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater=20
(EDT), the group that developed Virtual-Sit In technologies in 1998 in=20
solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He is Senior=
=20
Editor of The Thing (bbs.thing.net). He is a former member of Critical Art=
=20
Ensemble (1987 to 1994), the originators of the theory of Electronic Civil=
=20
Disobedience). Currently he is a Fake_Fakeshop Worker (www.fakeshop.com), a=
=20
hybrid performance group, presented at the Whitney Biennial 2000. Dominguez=
=20
has collaborated on a number of international net_art projects: among them=
=20
are Dollspace, produced with Francesca da Rimini (www.thing.net/~dollyoko),=
=20
and the Somatic_Architecture Project with Diane Ludin=20
(www.thing.net/~diane), in which he is OS_slave for I_Drunners (a=20
Mistresses of Project). He has also collaborated with Jennifer and Kevin=20
Mccoy (airworld.net) on a number of projects, and participated in "The=20
Warhol Hijack" with the Verbal group. He presented EDT's SWARM action at=20
Ars Electronica's InfoWar Festival in 1998 (Linz, Austria). His first=20
digital zapatismo project took place in 1996 - 97, a three month=20
RealVideo/Audio network project: The Zapatista/Port Actionat (MIT). His=20
essays have appeared at Ctheory (www.ctheory.org) and in "Corpus Delecti:=20
Performance Art of the Americas," (Routledge, 2000), edited by Coco Fusco.=
=20
He edited EDT's forthcoming book Hacktivism: network_art_activism,=20
(Autonomedia Press, 2001).
Session 5 Plenary/Discussion
LUNCH BREAK 1.00 -2.00 pm
Session 6 2.00 - 4.30 pm
Cultural Values
How do we measure the significance of other cultural worldviews? Who=20
decides when there is a clash between cultural values? Is postcolonial and=
=20
multicultural discourse appropriate for addressing indigenous issues?
Speakers
Jean Fisher
Towards a Metaphysics of Shit
The paper explores the question of whether we can still speak of an art of=
=20
'resistance' and ethical responsibility, and if so, what forms it might=20
take. It looks at the forms of transgressive tactics employed by Native=20
American and West African tricksters and Bakhtin's reading of the European=
=20
carnivalesque, paying particular attention to the significance of language=
=20
usage.
Jean Fisher is a freelance writer on contemporary art and the former editor=
=20
of Third Text. She is the editor of the anthologies, Global Visions:=20
Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts (1994) and=20
Reverberations: Tactics of Resistance, Forms of Agency (2000), and=20
currently teaches at Middlesex University and the Royal College of Art,=
London.
Marcia Langton
Culture Wars: Indigenous People and Globalisation
What are we to make of the suspicion of innovation in Aboriginal art, among=
=20
artists from both classical and post-classical styles, as somehow not=20
appropriately 'primitive'? What are we to make of how Aboriginal art is=20
positioned ubiquitously with other things in strange places to do service=20
in juxtaposition and contrast to European ideas and values? This paper=20
discusses the strange fate of culture as nostalgic post-imperial commodity=
=20
and the entanglement of ideas about the primitive, authenticity, cultural=20
representation and objects as emblems in the global marketplace. Attention=
=20
is drawn to the recirculation in various localities of the global market of=
=20
the old and the new in Aboriginal iconography without regard to original=20
contexts. The paradox of the high consumption of ideas about Aborigines as=
=20
against the failure to engage with Aboriginal life lies at the heart of the=
=20
quintessential postcolonial racial anxiety. 'Aboriginality' is primarily a=
=20
textual or visual-and distant-experience for Australians and the consumers=
=20
of radically chic primitivism. The glut of Aboriginal images and metaphors=
=20
with the global recognition of Aboriginal art as a distinctive postcolonial=
=20
genre has amplified this paradox of our contiguity and our distance.=20
Marginalisation is no longer the issue; the problem is more properly one of=
=20
an absence of critical distinction and regard for the specific historical,=
=20
cultural and geographical origins of Indigenous work; and inevitably, a=20
problem of art as commodity, with superimposed values quite removed from=20
their original use or symbolic values.
Professor Marcia Langton holds the Foundation Chair of Indigenous Studies=20
at Melbourne University. Previously she held the Ranger Chair of Aboriginal=
=20
Studies at the Northern Territory University where she co-founded the=20
Centre for Indigenous, Natural and Cultural Resource Management. She is one=
=20
of Australia's leading authorities on contemporary social issues in=20
Aboriginal affairs. She has many years' experience as an anthropologist=20
working in indigenous affairs with land councils, the Queensland=20
government, commissions and universities. Marcia has published extensively=
=20
on Aboriginal affairs issues including land, resource and social impact=20
issues, indigenous dispute processing, policing and substance abuse,=20
gender, identity processing, art, film and cultural studies. She is=20
currently teaching on media and cultural difference and native title.=20
Professor Langton was awarded an AM in 1993 for services to anthropology=20
and advocacy of Aboriginal rights
Hetti Perkins
PARRALLEL UNIVERSE
This discussion will briefly attempt to understand and consider the world=20
or 'global' views of a select number of indigenous communities and artists.=
=20
These regional perspectives often describe worlds as yet uncharted, or=20
discovered, by globalisation; yet they inform the cultural products that=20
act as the nexus between the local and global. This leads us to ask how is=
=20
cultural difference transmitted through the visual arts? Is globalisation=20
relevant to the artists and their communities? How successful is this=20
dialogue and in what ways does it reflect the place of indigenous people in=
=20
Australia today?
Hetti Perkins is a member of the Eastern Arrernte and Kalkadoon=20
communities. Currently the curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander=
=20
Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Hetti has worked with=
=20
indigenous visual art for fifteen years. In recent years Hetti has=20
co-curated fluent, Australia's representation at the 47th Venice Biennale,=
=20
and Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales=
=20
for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival. Hetti was a member of the=20
International Selection Committee for the 2000 Biennale of Sydney.=20
Previously, Hetti was curator at Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative in=
=20
Sydney and worked for the federal government's marketing agency, Aboriginal=
=20
Arts Australia. A board member of Bangarra Dance Theatre, Hetti was also a=
=20
member of the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council and is=
=20
presently a member of the Indigenous Arts Reference Group and the Visual=20
Arts and Crafts Committee of the NSW Ministry for the Arts.
Session 6 Plenary/Discussion
AFTERNOON BREAK 4.30 - 4.45 pm
Session 7 4.45 - 6.15 pm
Chairperson Nikos Papastergiadis
Closing Keynote Lecture
Coco Fusco
ONLY SKIN DEEP: CHANGING VISIONS OF THE AMERICAN SELF
This paper springs from the research I have conducted for a major=20
exhibition on this subject being held at the International Centre of=20
Photography in New York. For most of the history of the United States,=20
access to citizenship has been restricted on the basis of race. To this=20
day, evolving theories about race inform our ideas about who Americans are=
=20
and what they look like. No other means of recording human likeness has=20
been used more systematically to describe and construct American identity=20
than photography. Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self, a=
=20
project being developed by the International Center of Photography in New=20
York, examines how photography has played a key role in shaping our ideas=20
about nationalism and selfhood. Only Skin Deep offers a critical review of=
=20
the ways that ideas about race are manifested through imaging technologies=
=20
in America, from the mid-19th century to the present. To debunk the common=
=20
sense notion that race is just a code word for African Americans and that=20
all people raced, a special effort will be made to include representations=
=20
of all ethnic groups in the United States and in the US territories. The=20
exhibition will break new ground by considering the myriad representations=
=20
of whiteness in American photography. The broadening of scope will also=20
include dealing with the ways that photography extended the borders of the=
=20
US by forging a link between continental United States and the territories=
=20
and protectorates under US control since the end of the 19th century. As=20
the ICP show will open at a time when many countries in Europe, Africa and=
=20
Asia are rethinking their respective national identities and colonial=20
legacies, it will insert itself into a global debate about how societies=20
interpret the meaning of human diversity.
Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist. She as performed,=
=20
lectured, exhibited and curated throughout North and South America, Europe,=
=20
South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. She is the author of=20
English is Broken Here (The New Press, 1995) and the editor of Corpus=20
Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas (Routledge, 1999). A new=20
collection of her essays and performance texts, entitled The Bodies That=20
Were Not Ours will be published by Routledge in the fall of 2001. Fusco's=20
performances and videos have been included in The Whitney Biennial, The=20
Sydney Biennale, The Johannesburg Biennial, The Kwangju Biennale, The=20
Bienal Barro de America in Caracas, The International Art Festival of=20
Medellin, The London International Theatre Festival, the National Review of=
=20
Live Art, and The Hull Time Arts Festival in Britain. She has also curated=
=20
several art exhibitions, media programs and performance festivals in the=20
U.S. and Europe. She is currently curating a comprehensive exhibition on=20
racial taxonomy in American photography for the International Center for=20
Photography that will open at the end of next year. Her new play, The=20
Incredible Disappearing Woman, commissioned by the Portland Institute of=20
Contemporary Art, will also be presented in 2002. Fusco writings have=20
appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The Village Voice,=20
The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, The Nation, Ms., Frieze, Third Text,=
=20
and Nka: Journal of African Art, as well as a number of anthologies. She is=
=20
an associate professor at the Tyler School of Art.
Session 7 Plenary/Discussion
Close
VENUE
COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS, UNSW (PADDINGTON CAMPUS)
BOOKINGS
TEL - (02) 9331 0478
FAX - (02) 9368 1705
EMAIL - artspace@artspace.org.au
FURTHER INFORMATION
http://www.artspace.org.au/gacd
--
** PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW EMAIL ADDRESS IS artspace@artspace.org.au **
_____________________
Interested in becoming a member of Artspace? We offer an extremely=20
reasonably priced membership of $16.50 conc or $33.00 full annually (inc=20
GST). Benefits include receiving monthly invitations to our exhibitions and=
=20
events, discounts in our bookshop, the opportunity to stand for and/or vote=
=20
for Artspace's Board, as well as discounts on admission to our events.=20
Besides that, you will also know that you are supporting the development=20
and production of new contemporary art and ideas!! JOIN NOW AND INFORM A=20
DIFFERENT FUTURE!! You are welcome to pay by credit card over the phone,=20
fax, email or snail mail, or post us a cheque. Thanks for your support!!!
_____________________
Artspace
The Gunnery
43 - 51 Cowper Wharf Road
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
Australia
tel +61 2 9368 1899
fax +61 2 9368 1705
mailto:artspace@artspace.org.au
http://www.artspace.org.au
Director: Nicholas Tsoutas
Curator/Public Programs: Jacqueline Phillips
Curator/Publications: Simon Rees
Gallery Manager: Sally Breen
Artspace gratefully acknowledges the VACF of the Australia Council and the
NSW Ministry for the Arts
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<html>
<font face=3D"Helvetica, Helvetica"><b>ARTSPACE IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE A
CRITCAL CONFERENCE EVENT TAKING PLACE IN JULY 2001.</b> CONVENED BY
NICHOLAS TSOUTAS + NIKOS PAPASTERGIADIS. A CONFERENCE INITIATIVE
DEVELOPED BY NICHOLAS TSOUTAS.<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><font face=3D"Helvetica, Helvetica" size=3D4><b>GLOBALISATION + ART +
CULTURAL DIFFERENCE: ON THE EDGE OF CHANGE<br>
</b>THIS MAJOR CONFERENCE EVENT INVOLVING 6 INTERNATIONAL AND 10
AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS WILL RETHINK STRATEGIES FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY INTO
THE FUTURE.<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><font face=3D"Helvetica, Helvetica"><b>SPEAKERS<br>
</b>RASHEED ARAEEN<br>
NIKOS PAPASTERGIADIS<br>
COCO FUSCO<br>
GERARDO MOSQUERA<br>
FAZAL RIZVI<br>
IEN ANG<br>
SNEJA GUNEW<br>
PAUL CARTER<br>
GHASSAN HAGE<br>
CARLOS CAPPELAN<br>
JOHN CONOMOS<br>
LINDY LEE<br>
RICARDO DOMINGUEZ<br>
JEAN FISHER<br>
MARCIA LANGTON<br>
HETTI PERKINS<br>
<br>
<b>DATES<br>
</b>FRI 27, SAT 28 + SUN 29 JULY 2001<br>
VENUE, BOOKINGS AND FURTHER INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS EMAIL<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>SESSION AND SPEAKER DETAILS<br>
<br>
Friday 27July<br>
<br>
Session 1 - 7.30 pm<br>
<br>
Introduction<br>
<br>
</b><i>Nicholas Tsoutas</i> Director, Artspace<br>
<br>
<b>Keynote Lecture<br>
<br>
Rasheed Araeen<br>
<br>
<i>COME WHAT MAY: Beyond the Emperors New Clothes<br>
<br>
</b></i>This paper discusses the affects of globalisation and
multiculturalism on visual art practice in Britain. I will examine
'multiculturalism' as a global phenomenon and its commodification on the
basis of 'difference' as part of the emergence of global capitalism and
its art market; and then offer, tentatively, a radical alternative
vis-a-vis art practice to the prevailing obsession with the identity
riddled narcissism of the infantile ego. I've pretty harsh words to say
about those who think globalisation is a positive development that gives
other cultures an opportunity to express themselves as part of worldwide
cultural dialogues. For this conference, I would like to explore,
historically, the multiculturalism of art in the 20th century, and would
argue that multiculturalism was the foundation stone of modernism which
emerged with Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and which changed the
whole perception of art from iconography representation of visible world
to total abstraction. It was this multiculturalism on the basis of which
the modernism of western artists was able to claim its universality.
However this universality based on the appropriation and assimilation of
the other by the dominant discourse faced a challenge when the other
entered modernism in its own right as a subject confronting its
eurocentric ideology. Unable to come to terms with this challenge, which
would have given modernism's multiculturalism true universality,
eurocentrism had to cover up this unresolvable embarrassing situation by
erecting a wall of deception in the form of its concern for the right of
other cultures and their own self-expressions. This concern has now been
legitimised by postmodernism with its emphasis on the subjective self,
which must carry signs of its racial, ethnic or cultural origins in order
to be recognised as an authentic subject. With globalisation and its
demands for a greater variety of cultural goods for its market, this
subjective self, unable or unwilling to see or go beyond its subjective
conditions on the pretext of self-expression, has succumbed to these
demands. The basis of the discourse of recent Multiculturalism, which is
an antithesis of modernist multiculturalism, is the so-called diasporic
conditions and experiences of the post-war migrants which, including
African Americans, do not exceed 100 millions, which is 1.6% of world
population. How can this discourse based on the experiences of such a
small minority be considered representing the condition of the world? The
subjective condition of the large majority of world population is not
their displacement or uprootment but the exploitation of their resources
and resulting world poverty. In fact the discourse of multiculturalism is
the discourse of a privileged class whose privileges derive from the
economy of global capitalism and its power to reduce anything to
reification and commodification. The alternative to this dehumanising
development, I would argue in my paper, is to look outward, turning our
gaze away from the (alienated or disturbed) inner self to the life at
large and make art as part of its transformational processes. The new art
will thus emerge away from the centres of power, away from the decadence
of media sensationalism, to produce conceptual models for the affirmative
actions and the positive advancement of human society as a whole.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Rasheed Araeen</b> is an artist, writer and Founding Editor of
Third Text. After pioneering minimalism of sculpture in Britain (1965),
he moved on, in the early seventies, to make works which dealt with
questions of racism and imperialism and their role in maintaining the
white genealogy of art history. His main text in this respect,
'Preliminary Notes for a Black Manifesto', was written in 1975-76 much
before the emergence of postcolonial critical theory. A selection of his
early writing was published entitled 'Making Myself Visible, in 1984.
Among his many other activities, he has curated 'The Other Story:
Afro-Asian Artists in Post-war Britain', held at the Hayward Gallery,
London, in 1989. Recently he has been awarded international patent for an
invention.<br>
<br>
</i> <br>
<b>Saturday 28 July<br>
<br>
<br>
Session 2 - 9.30 am<br>
<br>
Keynote Lecture<br>
<br>
Nikos Papastergiadis<br>
<br>
<i>Rethinking Cultural Identity<br>
<br>
</b></i>In this paper I will present an account of the available models
for understanding cultural identity. My aim is to establish a sense of
the parameters of the consensus and the definitions and theories of
cultural identity, and to test these models in light of current global
pressures and the influence new media relationships. In particular, I
will be examining the limitations of the debates which are confined to
either absolutist or relativist perspectives, and developing a new
typology which draws from the work of Stuart Hall.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Nikos Papastergiadis</b> is head of The Centre for Ideas, Victorian
College of Arts, University of Melbourne. He is a writer on contemporary
art and cultural theory. His books include, Modernity as Exile (1993),
Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000). He
has just completed a new book called Topographies: Art, Place, and the
Everyday, which is to be published by Rivers Oram Press.<br>
<br>
<br>
</i><b>Session 3 - 10.45 am - 1.15 pm<br>
<br>
Globalisation<br>
<br>
</b>What are the forces that are producing new levels of interconnection
and rupture across the world? What is the impact of new media
technologies on the dissemination of culture? Are they enabling more
symmetrical forms of exchange or repeating the existing forms of cultural
domination?<br>
<br>
<b>Chairperson<i> Cecelia Cmielewski<br>
<br>
</i>Speakers<br>
<br>
Gerardo Mosquera<br>
<br>
<i>Alien-Own/Own-Alien. Notes on Globalisation and Cultural
Difference<br>
<br>
</b></i>The lecture will analyse the interaction of opposite tendencies
toward homogenisation and difference in contemporary art and culture as a
result of globalisation. It will consider situations of power and
displacement, processes of diversification of the international
metaculture, cultural syncretism, and dialogic strategies. Significant
examples from African and Caribbean poetry will be examined as metaphors
for the problems under discussion. These examples will also underline
historical changes in the transcultural paradigms of regions with strong
ethnic dynamics.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Gerardo Mosquera</b> (Havana, 1945) is a freelance curator and art
critic based in Havana, Adjunct Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary
Art, New York, advisor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldenden Kunsten,
Amsterdam, and member of the advisory board of several art journals. He
was a founder of the Havana Biennials, and has curated many exhibitions,
including "It's Not What You See. Perverting Minimalism"
(Madrid, 2000), "Important & Exportant" (2nd. Johannesburg
Biennale, 1997), Ante America (Bogota, Caracas, New York, San Francisco,
San Diego...,1992-1994). Author of numerous texts on contemporary art and
art theory, Mosquera recently participated in "fresh cream"
(London, 2000), edited "Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art
Criticism from Latin America" (London, 1995), and is currently
co-editing "Over Here. International Perspectives on Art and
Culture" (working title) for the New Museum/MIT Press series
"Documentary Sources on Contemporary Art".<br>
</i> <br>
<b>Fazal Rizvi<br>
<br>
<i>Rethinking Hybridity, Multiculturalism and the Arts<br>
<br>
</b></i>This paper will critically examine the notion of hybridity as it
has been used in many recent writings on multiculturalism and the arts. I
will argue that while the idea of Hybridity is a useful antidote to
culturally racist essentialism, it cannot in itself provide the answers
to the difficult questions concerning the political economy of
hybridisation: how hybridity takes place, the forms it takes on in
particular contexts, how it is used to promote particular economic
interests, the consequences it has for particular sections of the
community, and when and how particular hybrid formations may be
progressive or regressive. I will suggest the need to articulate an
understanding of hybridity with the issues of hegemony and neo-colonial
power relations within the patterns of global cultural consumption.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Professor Fazal Rizvi</b> is Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) at
RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He has an extensive record of
achievement in international education. In 1998, he established and
directed Monash Centre for Research in International Education. Born in
India and educated in India, Australia and the UK, Professor Rizvi's PhD
is in Philosophy and Education from Kings College London. He has
published extensively on theories of globalisation, the
internationalisation of curriculum, issues of cultural diversity, the
arts and public policy, as well as the politics of Australian engagement
in Asia. His most recent books include a co-authored volume, Educational
Policy and the Politics of Change (Routledge 1997), two co-edited
volumes, Disability and the Dilemmas of Justice and Education (Open
University Press 1996) and Culture, Difference and the Arts (Allen &
Unwin 1994). Professor Rizvi has served on a number of government bodies
including the Australia Council (1992-95), the Queensland Ministerial
Advisory Committee on Ethnic Affairs (1994-95) and the Australia
Foundation for Culture and the Humanities (1995-1998). In 1996, he was
the President of the Australian Association of Research in
Education.<br>
<br>
</i><b>Ien Ang<br>
<br>
<i>TRANSLATING LIVES, BLURRED IDENTITIES Cross-cultural communication in
a globalising world<br>
<br>
</b></i>How can 'unity in diversity' and the 'celebration' of cultural
diversity - so common in the rhetoric of contemporary multicultural
society - cease to be mere facile formulas? This paper will address the
complexity of communicating across borders in a world in which the
coexistence of different realms of meaning, value and cultural expression
has become an intrinsic part of everyday life. The paper revisits popular
terms and metaphors to describe this situation, such as hybridity,
migrancy and 'the borderlands', and will look seriously and critically at
their implications for our approach to cultural diversity. The paper
advances the idea of 'living in translation' in our attempt to develop a
genuinely cross-cultural practice, marked simultaneously by an
insurmountable difference between cultures and an interminable drive to
build bridges.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Ien Ang</b> is Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the
Institute for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney. She
recently co-edited _Alter/Asians: Asian-Australian Identities in Art,
Media and Popular Culture_ (Pluto Australia, 2000). Her next book,
entitled _On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, will
be published by Routledge later this year.<br>
<br>
<br>
</i><b>Session 3 Plenary/Discussion<br>
<br>
<br>
LUNCH BREAK 1.15 - 2.15 pm<br>
<br>
<br>
Session 4 - 2.15 - 5.15 pm<br>
<br>
Institutionalism<br>
<br>
</b>Can multiculturalism challenge the way we understand governance and
alter the conception of nation states? What are the ways institutions -
at national, local, and micro levels - affect the structures for
representing difference? Has multiculturalism been restructured to fit
the new disclosure on managerialism?<br>
<br>
<b>Chairperson<i> Dr. Mary Zournazi<br>
<br>
</i>Speakers<br>
<br>
Sneja Gunew<br>
<br>
<i>Multicultural Sites/Practices of Un/Homeliness.<br>
<br>
</b></i>In the introduction to his book The Location of Culture, Homi
Bhabha, drawing on Freud's famous essay 'The Uncanny', speaks of the
'unhomely', as that "ambivalent structure of the civil State as it
draws its rather paradoxical boundary between the private and the public
spheres ... The unhomely moment relates the traumatic ambivalences of a
personal, psychic history to the wider disjunctions of political
existence." Canadian cultural critics such as Himani Bannerji,
Dionne Brand, Roy Miki and NourbeSe Philip speak about the ways in which
Black and Asian artists and writers have in various ways been excluded
from Canadian culture, have felt themselves unable to participate fully
in the public sphere. Using these concepts and those relating to 'spatial
entitlement' (De Certeau, Hage), I plan to look at the tactics employed
by particular groups who grapple with cultural notions of 'belonging' in
various ways. In particular I will explore specific migrant groups in
Vancouver who are termed or, alternatively, self-identify as 'Asians' and
the ways in which they make their presence in the city felt through forms
of cultural production (e.g. literature, video, art, etc.) and how they
locate and produce a sense of belonging and at-home-ness in the different
parts of the city. To explore these concepts I may focus on two sites in
Vancouver. The first is the Video-In/Out
(<a href=3D"http://www.video-in.com/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.video-in.com</a=
>)
which describes itself as a "not for profit video production,
exhibition and distribution centre operated by and for independent video
makers, experimental video artists, and media/community activists."
The second 'site' is the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop
(<a href=3D"http://www.asian.ca/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.asian.ca</a>) which
produces a newsletter Rice Paper and acts as a clearing house and
resource centre for Asian Canadian (as well as linking with Asian
American) writers. I may also refer to the Transculturalisms project
which will explore notions of m=E9tissage, creolization and the impact of
'mixed-race' issues on contemporary Canadian arts practices.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Sneja Gunew</b> has taught at various universities in England,
Australia and Canada. She has published widely on multicultural,
postcolonial and feminist critical theory and is currently Professor of
English and Women's Studies at the University of British Columbia,
Canada. She has edited (with Anna Yeatman) Feminism and the Politics of
Difference and (with Fazal Rizvi) Culture, Difference and the Arts. Her
most recent book is Framing Marginality: Multicultural Literary Studies
and she has just completed a book length study Multicultural Sites in a
Transnational Era: Bodies, Communities, Nations. Her current work is in
comparative multiculturalism and in diasporic literatures and their
intersections with national and global cultural formations using
theoretical frameworks deriving from postcolonialism and critical
multicultural theory. She is the director of the three-year
Transculturalisms/M=E9tissage project being co-ordinated by the
International Council for Canadian Studies.<br>
<br>
</i><b>Paul Carter<br>
<br>
'The Ersatz of Difference'<br>
<br>
</b>As nation states multiply their Ersatz economies and cultures, they
display their inner contradiction. A claim to local autonomy depends on
access to global markets. Historically, this is the burden of federal
theory: to imagine trans-national systems of government predicated on
non-hierarchical relationships between parts, and hence to erode the
edges of the nation-state. This critique produces (at least in theory)
new modes of political and social discourse, localisms that cannot be
mapped to a global template. Differences continue to differentiate
themselves in unpredictable ways. Stemming from the experience of my
"federal artwork" Nearamnew (Federation Square, Melbourne,
2001), these propositions are explored in relation to the emergence of a
non-territorialised but localised poetics.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Paul Carter</b>, is a writer/artist, professorial research fellow,
The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. Recent publications:
Depth of Translation, the book of Raft (with Ruark Lewis), Lost Subjects
(both 1999) and True Clairvoyance, art, migration, place (forthcoming).
Recent artworks: Relay (Olympic Coordination Authority, Homebush Bay,
Sydney, with Ruark Lewis, 1999-), Nearamnew (Federation Square Public Art
Program, Melbourne, 2001-), The Terraces Project (North Terrace Precincts
Redevelopment Project, Adelaide, 2001<br>
<br>
</i><b>Ghassan Hage<br>
<br>
<i>The Neo-Liberal Aesthetics of Australian Multiculturalism<br>
<br>
</b></i>Australian Multicultural Policy has always been multifaceted. Two
commonly acknowledged elements are multiculturalism as 'cultural policy'
aimed at the promotion of cultural pluralism and multiculturalism as
'social policy' aimed at promoting non-English speaking migrant's
inclusion. While the first is seen to concern cultural institutions such
as the media and the arts, etc... the second is seen as part of the
welfare state. It has been often rightly argued that the decline of the
welfare state has led to a dominance of the discourse of cultural
pluralism and cultural identity over the discourse of socio- economic
rights. In this paper, I argue that there is a further, increasingly
apparent, split within cultural pluralism itself. It is a divide between
what we might call cultural pluralism for ourselves and cultural
pluralism for others. I show how this split has been produced through the
integration of cultural pluralism with an aestheticisation of urban space
that is part and parcel of the government's neo-liberal politics. What
results is a multiculturalism directed at attracting foreign investment.
I examine the nature and the ramifications of this phenomenon.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Ghassan Hage</b> teaches anthropology at the University of Sydney.
He is currently working on an ARC supported trans-national ethnographic
analysis of Lebanese migration in Sydney, Melbourne, Philadelphia, New
Bedford, Caracas, Paris and Cameroon. He is the author of White Nation,
Pluto Press, Sydney 1998 and Routledge, New York 2000. He is also the
editor of the forthcoming Arab- Australians: citizenship and belonging,
Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 2001.<br>
<br>
<br>
</i><b>Session 4 Plenary/Discussion<br>
<br>
</b> <br>
<b>Sunday 29 July<br>
<br>
<br>
Session 5 - 10.00 am - 1.00 pm<br>
<br>
Translation<br>
<br>
</b>Under what conditions can signs and symbols communicate across
cultural boundaries? Is translation possible or inevitable in a
multicultural context? What is the effect of new media technologies in
the translation of culture?<br>
<br>
<b>Chairperson<i> Dr. Glenda Sluga<br>
<br>
</i>Speakers<br>
<br>
Carlos Cappelan<br>
<br>
<i>"I would like to say a few words before I talk"<br>
<br>
</b></i>"An intellectual performance and/or an enacted academic talk
about political diversity (and also about cultural strategies dealing
with issues of representation)"<br>
<br>
Presence and representation: representations as social facts and social
facts as bearers of symbolic meaning in the debate of a global political
field. Has the notion of the "real" changed our perception of
power? This will talk about political diversity and specific cultural
strategies as seen from the horizon of the Bergen fiord.<br>
<br>
<i>Born in South America (Uruguay) and living in the Nordic Countries
since 1973, professor at the Bergen Art School in Norway and currently
based in Spain, CC has shown is work internationally in one-man shows as
well as in group-shows & biennales (Havanna, Johannesburg, Kwang-Ju,
Site Santa Fe, San Paulo, MERCOSUR, etc). His works deals widely with
issues of representation and plays with the notions of identity of the
artwork, the artist, the audience and the institution or the context in
which he acts. Mainly installation-based, the projects don't exclude
other means of expression such as paintings, writings or
performances.<br>
<br>
</i><b>John Conomos<br>
<br>
<i>New Media, Culture, Identity<br>
<br>
</b></i>This paper will critique the present spurious claims that are
still being made in popular and academic discourses of the new media
technologies in terms of their radical implications for cultural and
social transformation. It will focus on the highly volatile
configurations evident in the complex relations of ethnicity,
"race" and representation that inform new media, theory and
everyday life. Critics such as Iain Chambers, Sean Cubitt, and Kevin
Robbins, amongst others, have suggested that new media technologies are
problematically valorised in so far as they provide a continuing basis
for the virtual appropriation, control and manipulation of the world. We
will delineate new alternative perspectives, agendas and issues relating
to the ongoing rationalistic and technocratic idealisation promoting the
new technologies. Crucially we need to explore how the new media may
renew or expand our ways of seeing, looking and watching in the context
of the cultural, the social and the temporal. The new media technologies
have to be discussed not in terms of mastery and transcendence but how
they figure in our cultural lives and social space and what kind of
psychic investments we make in visual culture and experience. This means
going beyond the familiar debates of vision and modernity and
investigating the intricate and mobile connections between the new media
technologies and the actual "wordly" circumstances (Edward
Said) of contemporary cultural production. It also signifies questioning
Western binarism and universal categories and valuing cultural difference
(in all of its myriad complexities), migrancy, marginality and
trans-generic experimentation in the new media art forms in order to
criticise the new orthodoxies of technoculture and " the mantras of
multiculturalism" (Homi Bhabha) that still unfortunately
characterise certain discourses of "othering" that we are
becoming familiar with by now.<br>
<br>
<b><i>John Conomos</b> is a media artist, theorist and critic who teaches
film and new media studies at Sydney College of the Arts, University of
Sydney. Conomos's videotapes and installations have been extensively
exhibited throughout Australia and overseas. He is a frequent contributor
to art, film and media journals and has, over the years, participated in
numerous conferences, festivals and seminars concerning cinema, the new
media and the visual arts. Last year Conomos was awarded a Two Year New
Media Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. He has recently
co-edited (with Brad Buckley) the forthcoming anthology Republics of
Ideas (Pluto Press) and is currently working on an autobiography and a
collection of his critical essays. He also recently wrote a new
radiophonic work "Cinema of Solitude " (in collaboration with
composer Robert Lloyd) on the French filmmaker Robert Bresson for ABC
Radio National.<br>
<br>
</i><b>Lindy Lee<br>
<br>
<i>Cycles through a Chinese Landscape<br>
<br>
</b></i>In 'Cycles Through A Chinese Landscape', Lindy Lee will discuss
notions of selfhood as changing aggregations of experience that, in her
case, include both Eastern and Western influences. As an artist, her
on-going concerns are the relationship between copies and originals in
connection to notions of authenticity, selfhood and Zen Buddhism. Lee
will also relate how some of these issues have directed her community
development work with the Asian Australian Artists Association<br>
<br>
<b><i>Lindy Lee</b> is a Chinese - Australian artist who was born in
Brisbane but has based in Sydney for the past 20 years. Currently she
teaches at Sydney College of the Arts and is Vice President of the Asian
Australian Artists Association. She has exhibited widely both nationally
and internationally and her work in included in most major public
Australian collections. Some significant exhibitions include Perspecta
'85 AGNSW; Origins, Originality and Beyond Biennale of Sydney, 1986; Edge
to Edge: Contemporary Australian Art to Japan, touring Museums of
Contemporary Art in Japan 1988/89;Australia Beyond the Mundane:
Australian Art to China, 1988; Paraculture, Artistspace New York;
Strangers in Paradise: Contemporary Australian Art to Korea, 1992;
Prospect'93 Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany; Photography is Dead, MCA,
Sydney 1996; Spirit and Place, MCA, Sydney, 1997 and Bright and Shinning,
Australian Embassy, Tokyo 1999<br>
<br>
</i><b>Ricardo Dominguez<br>
<br>
<i>Mayan Technologies and Networked_Activism<br>
<br>
</b></i>This presentation will cover the astonishing development of new
communication technologies has opened up new forms of connection for
cultural activism. From RTMark, to Sarai (Delhi), to Radio B92
(Belgrade), to Digital Zapatismo and the Independent Media Centers
(Seattle, Washington, Austin), to the net-based health activism of groups
such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, a burgeoning network of artists and
activists linked across the globe is refiguring cultural and political
space. Using new and old media technologies, they are developing new
connections and strategies, overturning old hierarchies and providing
fluid alternatives to cumbersome institutions.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Ricardo Dominguez</b> is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance
Theater (EDT), the group that developed Virtual-Sit In technologies in
1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He
is Senior Editor of The Thing (bbs.thing.net). He is a former member of
Critical Art Ensemble (1987 to 1994), the originators of the theory of
Electronic Civil Disobedience). Currently he is a Fake_Fakeshop Worker
(<a href=3D"http://www.fakeshop.com/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.fakeshop.com</a=
>),
a hybrid performance group, presented at the Whitney Biennial 2000.
Dominguez has collaborated on a number of international net_art projects:
among them are Dollspace, produced with Francesca da Rimini
(<a href=3D"http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko" eudora=3D"autourl">www.thing.net=
/~dollyoko</a>),
and the Somatic_Architecture Project with Diane Ludin
(<a href=3D"http://www.thing.net/~diane" eudora=3D"autourl">www.thing.net/~d=
iane</a>),
in which he is OS_slave for I_Drunners (a Mistresses of Project). He has
also collaborated with Jennifer and Kevin Mccoy (airworld.net) on a
number of projects, and participated in "The Warhol Hijack"
with the Verbal group. He presented EDT's SWARM action at Ars
Electronica's InfoWar Festival in 1998 (Linz, Austria). His first digital
zapatismo project took place in 1996 - 97, a three month RealVideo/Audio
network project: The Zapatista/Port Actionat (MIT). His essays have
appeared at Ctheory
(<a href=3D"http://www.ctheory.org/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.ctheory.org</a>)
and in "Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas,"
(Routledge, 2000), edited by Coco Fusco. He edited EDT's forthcoming book
Hacktivism: network_art_activism, (Autonomedia Press, 2001).<br>
<br>
<br>
</i><b>Session 5 Plenary/Discussion<br>
<br>
<br>
LUNCH BREAK 1.00 -2.00 pm<br>
<br>
<br>
Session 6 2.00 - 4.30 pm <br>
<br>
Cultural Values<br>
<br>
</b>How do we measure the significance of other cultural worldviews? Who
decides when there is a clash between cultural values? Is postcolonial
and multicultural discourse appropriate for addressing indigenous
issues?<br>
<br>
<b>Speakers<br>
<br>
Jean Fisher<br>
<br>
<i>Towards a Metaphysics of Shit<br>
<br>
</b></i>The paper explores the question of whether we can still speak of
an art of 'resistance' and ethical responsibility, and if so, what forms
it might take. It looks at the forms of transgressive tactics employed by
Native American and West African tricksters and Bakhtin's reading of the
European carnivalesque, paying particular attention to the significance
of language usage.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Jean Fisher</b> is a freelance writer on contemporary art and the
former editor of Third Text. She is the editor of the anthologies, Global
Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts (1994) and
Reverberations: Tactics of Resistance, Forms of Agency (2000), and
currently teaches at Middlesex University and the Royal College of Art,
London.<br>
<br>
</i><b>Marcia Langton<br>
<br>
<i>Culture Wars: Indigenous People and Globalisation<br>
<br>
</b></i>What are we to make of the suspicion of innovation in Aboriginal
art, among artists from both classical and post-classical styles, as
somehow not appropriately 'primitive'? What are we to make of how
Aboriginal art is positioned ubiquitously with other things in strange
places to do service in juxtaposition and contrast to European ideas and
values? This paper discusses the strange fate of culture as nostalgic
post-imperial commodity and the entanglement of ideas about the
primitive, authenticity, cultural representation and objects as emblems
in the global marketplace. Attention is drawn to the recirculation in
various localities of the global market of the old and the new in
Aboriginal iconography without regard to original contexts. The paradox
of the high consumption of ideas about Aborigines as against the failure
to engage with Aboriginal life lies at the heart of the quintessential
postcolonial racial anxiety. 'Aboriginality' is primarily a textual or
visual-and distant-experience for Australians and the consumers of
radically chic primitivism. The glut of Aboriginal images and metaphors
with the global recognition of Aboriginal art as a distinctive
postcolonial genre has amplified this paradox of our contiguity and our
distance. Marginalisation is no longer the issue; the problem is more
properly one of an absence of critical distinction and regard for the
specific historical, cultural and geographical origins of Indigenous
work; and inevitably, a problem of art as commodity, with superimposed
values quite removed from their original use or symbolic values.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Professor Marcia</b> Langton holds the Foundation Chair of
Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University. Previously she held the
Ranger Chair of Aboriginal Studies at the Northern Territory University
where she co-founded the Centre for Indigenous, Natural and Cultural
Resource Management. She is one of Australia's leading authorities on
contemporary social issues in Aboriginal affairs. She has many years'
experience as an anthropologist working in indigenous affairs with land
councils, the Queensland government, commissions and universities. Marcia
has published extensively on Aboriginal affairs issues including land,
resource and social impact issues, indigenous dispute processing,
policing and substance abuse, gender, identity processing, art, film and
cultural studies. She is currently teaching on media and cultural
difference and native title. Professor Langton was awarded an AM in 1993
for services to anthropology and advocacy of Aboriginal rights<br>
<br>
</i><b>Hetti Perkins<br>
<br>
<i>PARRALLEL UNIVERSE<br>
<br>
</b></i>This discussion will briefly attempt to understand and consider
the world or 'global' views of a select number of indigenous communities
and artists. These regional perspectives often describe worlds as yet
uncharted, or discovered, by globalisation; yet they inform the cultural
products that act as the nexus between the local and global. This leads
us to ask how is cultural difference transmitted through the visual arts?
Is globalisation relevant to the artists and their communities? How
successful is this dialogue and in what ways does it reflect the place of
indigenous people in Australia today?<br>
<br>
<b><i>Hetti Perkins</b> is a member of the Eastern Arrernte and Kalkadoon
communities. Currently the curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Hetti has
worked with indigenous visual art for fifteen years. In recent years
Hetti has co-curated fluent, Australia's representation at the 47th
Venice Biennale, and Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery
of New South Wales for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival. Hetti was a
member of the International Selection Committee for the 2000 Biennale of
Sydney. Previously, Hetti was curator at Boomalli Aboriginal Artists
Cooperative in Sydney and worked for the federal government's marketing
agency, Aboriginal Arts Australia. A board member of Bangarra Dance
Theatre, Hetti was also a member of the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of
the Australia Council and is presently a member of the Indigenous Arts
Reference Group and the Visual Arts and Crafts Committee of the NSW
Ministry for the Arts.<br>
<br>
</i> <br>
<b>Session 6 Plenary/Discussion<br>
<br>
<br>
AFTERNOON BREAK 4.30 - 4.45 pm<br>
<br>
<br>
Session 7 4.45 - 6.15 pm<br>
<br>
Chairperson<i> Nikos Papastergiadis<br>
<br>
</i>Closing Keynote Lecture<br>
<br>
Coco Fusco<br>
<br>
<i>ONLY SKIN DEEP: CHANGING VISIONS OF THE AMERICAN SELF<br>
<br>
</b></i>This paper springs from the research I have conducted for a major
exhibition on this subject being held at the International Centre of
Photography in New York. For most of the history of the United States,
access to citizenship has been restricted on the basis of race. To this
day, evolving theories about race inform our ideas about who Americans
are and what they look like. No other means of recording human likeness
has been used more systematically to describe and construct American
identity than photography. Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the
American Self, a project being developed by the International Center of
Photography in New York, examines how photography has played a key role
in shaping our ideas about nationalism and selfhood. Only Skin Deep
offers a critical review of the ways that ideas about race are manifested
through imaging technologies in America, from the mid-19th century to the
present. To debunk the common sense notion that race is just a code word
for African Americans and that all people raced, a special effort will be
made to include representations of all ethnic groups in the United States
and in the US territories. The exhibition will break new ground by
considering the myriad representations of whiteness in American
photography. The broadening of scope will also include dealing with the
ways that photography extended the borders of the US by forging a link
between continental United States and the territories and protectorates
under US control since the end of the 19th century. As the ICP show will
open at a time when many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia are
rethinking their respective national identities and colonial legacies, it
will insert itself into a global debate about how societies interpret the
meaning of human diversity.<br>
<br>
<b><i>Coco Fusco</b> is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist. She as
performed, lectured, exhibited and curated throughout North and South
America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. She is
the author of English is Broken Here (The New Press, 1995) and the editor
of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas (Routledge, 1999). A
new collection of her essays and performance texts, entitled The Bodies
That Were Not Ours will be published by Routledge in the fall of 2001.
Fusco's performances and videos have been included in The Whitney
Biennial, The Sydney Biennale, The Johannesburg Biennial, The Kwangju
Biennale, The Bienal Barro de America in Caracas, The International Art
Festival of Medellin, The London International Theatre Festival, the
National Review of Live Art, and The Hull Time Arts Festival in Britain.
She has also curated several art exhibitions, media programs and
performance festivals in the U.S. and Europe. She is currently curating a
comprehensive exhibition on racial taxonomy in American photography for
the International Center for Photography that will open at the end of
next year. Her new play, The Incredible Disappearing Woman, commissioned
by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, will also be presented in
2002. Fusco writings have appeared in a wide variety of publications,
including The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Art in America, The
Nation, Ms., Frieze, Third Text, and Nka: Journal of African Art, as well
as a number of anthologies. She is an associate professor at the Tyler
School of Art.<br>
</i><b>Session 7 Plenary/Discussion<br>
<br>
Close<br>
<br>
<br>
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