Micropolitics Events
JUNE, 2008

Friends from the Ljubljana-based Radical Education Group will be in London for three days at the end of June to meet with local housing organisers, artists and educators. With them the Micropolitics Group will drift to two sites, in search of transversal alliances between sites of art, education and struggle.

Both events are free of charge and all are welcome!

I. 24 June, 7PM
Transversal Occupations
Report from the ROG Social Centre in Ljubljana and discussion
Bowl Court Social Centre

II. 25 June 17, 7PM
Arts Education in the Name of What?
Report from the Radical Education project in Ljubljana and discussion of London possibilities
Camden Arts Centre

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FURTHER DETAILS

I.Transversal Occupations
An informal report and discussion on the Rog Social Centre in Ljubljana
24 June, 7PM
Bowl Court Social Center, just off Plough Yard,
6 Bowl Court
London EC2A

Gasper Kralj, a member of the Rog collective will present on the current state of affairs in an occupied factory in Ljubljana currently under threat by local government. Rog is a completely furnished, programmatically innovative and well visited concert hall, circus and gallery. The social centre holds regular meetings and weekly discussions with workers living in boarding houses, activists from the asylum seekers home, people without papers, detained in the detention centre in Postojna, the erased citizens of Slovenia and others who recognise the creative, organisational and resistance potential of Rog. The temporary users of Rog represent an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge and experience. In many ways they have become an example to other autonomous spaces of independent art and cultural, intellectual and social activities both in Slovenia and in Europe.

The Rog factory proves that it is possible to organize life and labour without concessions to privilege and profit demanded by the capitalist city management and the advancing eradication of public spaces, including institutions of art, culture, education and social activities. As an active site of occupation, Rog’s users denounce all forms of eradication of such places and stand committed to defending them.

The event follows a meeting of European Social Center’s meeting to be held at ROG, 20-21-22 June
More information at:
http://tovarna.org

II. Art Education in the Name of What?
25 June 2008, 7PM
A Report from the Radical Education Project in Ljubljana and
Public Roundtable Discussion
Camden Arts Centre
Arkwright Road
London NW3 6DG
UK
http://www.camdenartscentre.org/contactus/

Gasper Kralj, Bojana Piskur and Adela Zeleznik, members of the Radical Education project initiated by the Moderna galerija will present on the convergence of groups using processes of militant research and popular education to organise transversally in Ljubljana. Radical Education, an ongoing series of inquiries and events, has worked in the context of social centres, gallery spaces, the street and sites of formal education, bringing together and supporting the work of artists, housing and migration activists.

In this moment: in which pedagogical and affective processes become sites of seduction for the neo-liberalising forces of higher education, the programmatic engines of the corporate museum and accelerating waves of gentrification, how might arts education activities in London be re-oriented, reverse engineered to support specific sites of struggle?

Join us for presentations by members of the Radical Education project, local pedagogists and an informal discussion.

After a week and several events Brian Holmes in March (see Drift below), a presentation as part of Gasworks Disclosures series and extended discussions and planning sessions the micropolitics research group constituted itself as a much broader base and aimed to diversify its work beyond inviting speakers and running one-off events. We decided that we should build a series of sites and experiences together over the coming months, in order that we have some more ‘material’ through which to imagine future modes of organising. We talked about the group holding a space where multiple reflections can take place, where different modes of action might occur and how we might work with other people, groups and sites from a micropolitical perspective. In this, we talked again about Free Labour as a line of situated inquiry, photoromances and soap operas. We decided to aim to meet roughly twice a month, once at a fixed location, and one drift to another site/ event each month. The following took place at the end of March, April and May:

Saturday MARCH 29th
Presentation and Discussion as part of Gasworks ‘Disclosures’ at Toynbee Hall
We spoke about the micropolitics research group and issues around cultural work and free labour. We spoke about the history and format of the Photoromance and how we were trying to use this as a staging of aspiration and a tool for reflection and activation. See separate page on PHOTOROMANCE above.
Gasworks: Disclosures

Thursday APRIL 10th
INSTITUTION OF ROT (Richard and Lucia)
109 CORBYN STREET
LONDON N4 3BX
there’s no number just look for the black door, rap 3 times on the door with the piano pedals
nearest tubes: finsbury pk (victoria/piccadilly) 15 mins walk: archway (northern) 20 mins walk
Reading: Colletivo Situaciones text distributed via list.
At this event Richard Crow and Lucia Faranati spoke of the history of the Institute of Rot on the eve of their eviction/ relocation from the space. We discussed differences between independently run spaces in the early 1990s, and now in London, and what the current possibilities of another recession might produce. Richard spoke of de Certeau and Artaud and the necessity of secrets in an era of supposed transparency.

Tuesday APRIL 29th: Chelsea College of Art PhotoRomance Session. [Please see separate page on PHOTOROMANCE above]
http://radicaldiplomacy.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

Thursday MAY 1
MAY 1 is May Day and also the London Election. Ideas for use of material generated by the Chelsea Free Labour Photoromance were brought to London’s Annual MayDay march.

MICROPOLITICS / DRIFT with Brian Holmes
FEBRUARY 26 and MARCH 8/9, 2008

The City of Willingnesss, 24-hour walk with 16Beaver
London October 2005

As part of our ongoing enquiry, the Micropolitics Research Group at Goldsmiths has invited cultural theorist Brian Holmes to accompany us on a mobile extra-disciplinary investigation of conditions of precarity, flexibility and cultural production in London. The event is divided into three parts:

PART I
Preparing for the Drift
TUESDAY Feb 26, 6-8 pm
Goldsmiths College
Richard Hoggart (Main) Building, room 141

PART II
SATURDAY March 8, 10:30-6
DRIFT: A London Cultural Workers’ Inquiry
Starts Richard Hoggart (Main) Building, room 142

PART III
SUNDAY March 9, 1-4
AFTER DRIFT: What will we do with our research?
Richard Hoggart (Main) Building, room 142

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PART I
Preparing for the Drift
TUESDAY Feb 26, 6-8 pm
Goldsmiths College
Room 141 Richard Hoggart (Main) Building

At this seminar we will discuss some key texts and discuss our route through cultural worksites. We’ll read the following:

1. Liar’s Poker, a key text by Brian written a couple of years ago that flags up some of the problems artists run into when they attempt to engage in radical projects within the ‘art frame’.

2. Marta Malo de Molina’s text, Common Notions, Part 2: Institutional Analysis, Participatory Action-Research, Militant Research from the recent Transform issue on Instituent Practices gives us another set of genealogies through which to consider how we might think about our drift through London as something beyond the production of an ‘art project.’

3. Marx’s 1880 A Workers’ Inquiry
an early form of militant research which might help us to focus our attention on the analysis of cultural work we hope to undertake on the drift.

PART II
THE DRIFT: A London Cultural Workers’ Inquiry
SATURDAY MARCH 8, 2008
10:30-6,
Starting at Goldsmiths College
Room 142, Richard Hoggart (Main) Building

Over the course of day, we will engage in what Brian Holmes calls an ‘extradisciplinary investigation’, walking to sites of culture and knowledge production in London, exploring the ways in which people experience flexibility, precarity and possible futures in relation to the paradigms of cultural production. At each stop, invited guests will be asked to share thoughts and anecdotes outlining the contradictions, affects and critical tactics produced within their own experiences of their workplaces.

Our point of departure is Brian’s assertion that:
‘…cultural producers today, are humiliated by the conditions under which we work’

Our end point:
A pub (location tba)

Practically speaking, we will begin at:
10:30 a.m., Goldsmiths College (Room 142, Richard Hoggart Building)

The route includes a stop at the 56a social centre, Gasworks Gallery, The Ideas Store, various spaces in Shoreditch, and if there is time we’ll head to the edge of the Olympic site.

We’d prefer for folks to attend the entire day.
If this is not possible for you and you would like to join us along the way, call
0778 233 9529 or 0794 628 1841.

PART III
AFTER-DRIFT
Seminar with Brian Holmes
SUNDAY MARCH 9, 2008
1-4 pm
Goldsmiths College,
Room 142 Richard Hoggart (Main) Building

Brian will open the discussion by talking about the ambiguity experienced by contemporary cultural producers in relationship to the flexible economy and the stories told on the drift.
Referring to Brian’s text on Extradisciplinary Investigations and Saturday’s events, we will begin to generate an analysis and imagine next steps for the investigation.

All are welcome!

Micropolitics Research Group

The Micropolitics Group (PoCA) will be hosting Suely Rolnik, cultural critic, curator, psychoanalyst and professor at the Universidade Católica de São Paulo, this December and organizing a number of events and meetings around her visit:

Monday, 26 November, 6-8 PM
RHB (Goldsmiths Main Building) Room 141
MICROPOLITICS READING GROUP
Topic: Pimping and Counter–Pimping
In preparation for Suely Rolnik’s visit to Goldsmiths, a session addressing the politics of subjectivation in cultural work. Reading:
Suely Rolnik, ‘The Geopolitics of Pimping’: http://transform.eipcp.net/transversal/1106/rolnik/en
Felix Guattari and Suely Rolnik Molecular Revolution in Brazil (forthcoming MIT Semiotexte):
‘Subjectivity and History’ pp.35-178 and ‘Love, territories of desire and a new smoothness’, pp.413-463
http://micropolitics.wordpress.com/text-links/

Wednesday, December 5th 5-7pm
Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths
SUELY ROLNIK: PUBLIC LECTURE
Lygia Calling

Thursday December 6th 5-7pm
RHB (Goldsmiths Main Building) 256
SEMINAR with SUELY ROLNIK
Seminar will be based on texts for Reading Group (above), her lecture and thoughts on the forthcoming publication in English of ‘Molecular Revolution in Brazil’, MIT Semiotexte 2007/8

Suely Rolnik is a cultural critic, curator, psychoanalyst and professor at the Universidade Católica de São Paulo, where she conducts a transdisciplinary doctoral program on contemporary subjectivity. She is co-author with Félix Guattari of Molecular Revolution in Brazil, to be released in English translation by Semiotext next year and Micropolitics: Cartographies of Desire (1986). Most recently Rolnik curated “Lygia Clark. From work to event. We are the mould, it’s up to you to breathe substance into it’, a touring exhibition and catalogue on Clark’s later work. Refusing to simply re-display art works, the exhibition was composed of 63 video interviews with Clark’s friends, acquaintances, students and colleagues about the implications of her experimental, collective projects like the ‘Nostalgia of the Body’ workshops of the early 1970s and the individual therapeutic ‘Structuration of the Self’ sessions she undertook on her return to Rio in 1976.

STOP WORKING!: A VIDEO JAM
March 23, 2007 6.30pm

The Baths
Goldsmiths College
Seminar Room
Laurie Grove Baths

During Franco Berardi’s visit to the Micropolitics Group in February, he narrated the worker’s strikes in 1977 Italy as a ‘refusal of unhappiness’. The question was asked: what are our options today?

Join us for an open enquiry into the possibilities for refusal of work (and unhappiness) as we search for inspirations and celebrate
the end of term. It’s an open mic, so bring a clip from your favourite work refusal video.

So far, the menu includes fragments from:

La Classe Operaia Va In Paradiso (Working Class Goes to Paradise)
Director: Elio Petri
1971

Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers
Director: Eric Gandini
2003

Lavorare Con Lentezza
Director: Guido Chiesa
2004

Paz!
Director: Renato De Maria

I soliti ignoti
Mario Monicelli
1958

Accattone
Pier Paolo Passolini
1961

Franco Berardi (Bifo) Lecture, February 9th, 2007
I decided to leave Italy for a month because this month and next month, is the 30th anniversary of 1977. So I receive calls from journalists asking what I think, celebration and so on, so I escape from it, and I come here and I come here to talk about I don’t remember what - and I speak about 77. But its not the same situation. Why? Its easy to understand why. Because when a journalist asks me about 30 years ago and the 1970s in Italy, the central question of the interview is always violence. What do you think about violence… So please don’t ask me about violence or otherwise I become violent. Lets think about the Ramones… or something else. I want to talk about about the 70s but not in general, I want to talk about the complexity and ambiguity – the double face of the 77 event in Bologna. I would like to take some special notice of the Bologna specificity. What is the meaning of that year? Its not just an Italian event. It’s the year when Charlie Chaplin died…

Recording of lecture: http://www.forgetphotography.com/V002.WAV

The Micropolitics Research Group investigates the forces and procedures that entangle artistic production and the flexible subjectivities of its producers into the fabric of late capitalism. The prefix micro does not indicate ‘small’ or ‘mere’. Nor does it assume a belief in the revolutionary potential of everyday life, or indicate a retreat into the inner life of the subject. Rather, it is invoked to access the registers of desire, vulnerability, affect and subjective implication that generate both artistic practices and the collective engines of cognitive capitalism. If current regimes of cultural and cognitive capitalism are predicated on subjective forces, on the collective production of knowledge and surplus creativity, how can artists begin to distinguish, let alone imagine a practice that does not merely feed and replicate the machine itself? How can art practices that in Suely Rolnik’s words bring ‘mutations of the sensible’ into the realm of the visible or speakable, refuse or exit the limited field of possibility inscribed by late capitalism? Finally, if it is the very regimes of cognitive capitalism that not only capture but also produce flexible, creative subjectivities, how could we imagine a micropolitics of subjectivation? The research of the group will evolve from these core questions and will aim to investigate them through (a) theoretical analysis (b) the analysis of concrete situations of existing practice (c) the production of events and exhibitions.