[artinfo] Useless Uses conference at Royal Institute of Art

[Art&Education]

Useless Uses: International conference on use and 
uselessness in contemporary art

Thursday, January 21, 2016, 10am-6:30pm
Friday, January 22, 2016, 10am-5:30pm

Royal Institute of Art 
Flaggmansvägen 1, Skeppsholmen
111 49 Stockholm
Sweden
www.kkh.se

Useless Uses is an international conference 
organized by the Royal Institute of Art in 
Stockholm in cooperation with the Centre for 
Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP), 
Kingston University London. Speakers will 
consider the concept of use in its philosophical, 
economic and artistic meanings, along a 
trajectory running from Soviet Constructivism 
through Situationism to today's Network Activism. 
International contributors from philosophy, 
politics, political economy, art history and art 
production will consider the heritage of the 
contradictory double coding of "use" in the 
context of art, in the "double character" of the 
commodity form, in the opposition of the social 
functionality of "use" versus the promissory 
"usefulness," wherein the lack of a social 
function appears as a condition of art's 
criticality and utopian promise. Where does art 
stand in relation to these discourses today?

Contributors to the conference include: Éric 
Alliez, Professor of Modern European Philosophy 
at (CRMEP), Kingston University London & 
Professor of Philosophy and Contemporary 
Creations in Art, University of Paris 8; Étienne 
Balibar, Anniversary Chair of Modern European 
Philosophy at (CRMEP), Kingston University London 
and Visiting Professor at Columbia University, 
New York; Melanie Gilligan, visual artist and PhD 
Candidate at Royal Institute of Art, 
Goldin+Senneby, visual artists, with Théo 
Bourgeron, sociologist of finance; Christina 
Kiaer, Associate Professor in the Department of 
Art History, Northwestern University; Mara Lee, 
poet, writer and scholar; Peter Osborne, 
International Visiting Chair in Philosophy in the 
Context of Art, at Royal Institute of Art, 
Stockholm and Professor of Modern European 
Philosophy and Director of (CRMEP), Kingston 
University London; Hito Steyerl, filmmaker, 
visual artist, author, and Professor of New Media 
Art at Berlin University of the Arts; and 
McKenzie Wark, Professor of Media and Cultural 
Studies at The New School, New York City. 

The conference is an extension of the RIA's 
course Philosophy in the Context of Art, which 
contributes to the institution's research 
platform that explores contemporary philosophical 
approaches to art and culture. 

The conference is free and open to the public. 
<http://www.kkh.se/event/useless-uses/>Link to the programme

For further information and advance registrations, please contact:
Research Coordinator Åsa 
Andersson: <mailto:asa.andersson at kkh.se>asa.andersson at kkh.se