Imperfections: Mistakes, Cracks, Noise Today
March 12, 2019
Roundtable + Performances/Conference
March 12, 2019, 6-8 & 8-11pm Facebook
Sexyland
Ms. Van Riemdijksweg 39
NL-1033 RC Amsterdam
Featuring ao Mieke Bal, Graham Dunning, Glice, Linor Goralik, Ellen Rutten, Yuriko Saito, DJ Trish Trash
The Sublime Imperfections research collective (Amsterdam) devotes a round table + performance event to aesthetics & discourses of imperfection, mistakes, glitches and noise, repair and distortions. The event is part of a conference that address cravings for imperfection in design, music, art, writing, psychology, and genetics.
In recent decades, the trend to present imperfections as a plus rather than a problem has resonated across a scala of social disciplines and a range of world localities. Designers respond to hi-tech perfection with a love for wonky forms. Psychologists tell us to embrace imperfection in a mediatized age. Artists and musicians toy with electronic glitches and cracks. Philosophers and biologists plea against perfection in genetic engineering.
At the round table (6-8pm), leading thinkers and practitioners of the imperfect interrogate the contemporary craving for cracks, mistakes, and noise. When & why do artists, writers, filmmakers, and designers hail mistakes? Why do shabby chic and urban-ruin cults so easily lead to elitism or poverty porn? What does repair mean in times of love for the non-polished? And is a politics of imperfection and failure an answer to the Trumputin era? Speakers: Mieke Bal (Amsterdam) – prizewinning cultural theorist, video artist, author of ao Thinking in Film (Bloomsbury 2013); Linor Goralik (Tel Aviv/Moscow) – designer, fashion scholar, poet and author of Found Life (Columbia UP 2017); Yuriko Saito (Rhode Island) – professor of philosophy, author of Everyday Aesthetics (Oxford UP 2008); Joanna van der Zanden – curator, initiator of ao the Repair Manifesto (Amsterdam). Moderators: Patricia Pisters (Amsterdam) – professor of media studies, author of ao The Neuro Image (Stanford UP); Ellen Rutten (Amsterdam) – professor of literature, initiator of the Sublime Imperfections project.
The performance program (8-11pm) unites performers/DJs with a predilection for cracks, noise, and trash. Graham Dunning (London) works with array of turntables, contraptions, smashed vinyl, recycled objects. Combined his performances – which recently staged in ao Berlin, Oxford, London, Madrid – draw on rhythm and repetition, experimentation and improvisation. Glice (Amsterdam) – Melle Kromhout & Ruben Braeken – produces dark noise improvisations fused with post-industrial & post-classical sound structures. DJ Trish Trash (Amsterdam) creates music & autonomous work inspired by vintage magazines, graphical and architectural shapes. Curated by Caleb Kelly (Sydney) – media theorist, curator, author of ao Cracked Media (MIT).
‘For Bal research is pure marvel, a creative form of thinking where science becomes art’ Metropolis M
‘Windswept and expansive in its bruised intimacy’ Wire Magazine on Graham Dunning
Register via sublimeimperfectionsassistent@gmail.com (for ‘round table,’ ‘performances,’ or ‘both’). Guests are also welcome at the Imperfections conference, at Noordwijk aan Zee. Click here for a full program & to register. This event is supported by NWO ASCA ACGS. Image copyright: Mary Ponomareva.