Helen Hester 15th December 2014

Dr. Christopher Hamilton, reader in Philosophy at King’s College London will join us in a workshop navigating the question: Death is certain but unknowable, how then do we make sense of our lives? In this session, Hamilton will share current research on his work in moral philosophy, political philosophy and the philosophy of religion.

This series of events has been organised through a graduate mentoring initiative developed in collaboration with Acme Studios Graduate Award Programme

Artist Bo Choy will present her new film, The Birthday Party, which reflects on questions and issues raised in the season. Set in her forty-fifth birthday party, Anat, an artist who has led a successful career, makes an important announcement which stuns her closest friends and family. The screening will be followed by a discussion on the work and questions surrounding it led by artist Oreet Ashery.

This series of events has been organised through a graduate mentoring initiative developed in collaboration with Acme Studios Graduate Award Programme.

Oreet Ashery is an interdisciplinary artist working in local and international contexts and engaged with bio/political fiction, gender materiality and potential communities. Ashery is the winner of the Jarman Film Award 2017 and the Associate Professor of Fine Art at Ruskin School of Art. Ashery’s recent large scale projects include: Passing Through Metal, a sonic performance commissioned by LPS, Malmo, 2017; web-series Revisiting Genesis, commissioned by Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University London, and supported by the Wellcome Trust, 2016; The World is Flooding, a Tate Modern Turbine Hall performance re-enactment of Mayakovsky’s play ‘Mystery Bouffe’, 2014; and Party for Freedom, a moving-image album, concerts and performances commissioned by Artangel, 2013

Bo Choy is an artist living and working in London. Working across film, writing, performance, and often using fiction as a device, Bo seeks to examine the questions and politics that arise from living in the contemporary world.

Dr. Christopher Hamilton is Reader in Philosophy at King’s College London, where he teaches philosophy, literature and film. He specialises in the work of Nietzsche, Simone Weil, Kierkegaard, Primo Levi and W.G. Sebald. His work explores core themes in moral philosophy, the relationship between philosophy and literature, and between moral, religious and aesthetic value. He has also written on the philosophy of ageing, philosophy and (auto)biography, and the philosophy of tragedy. He aims to bring the ancient goals of philosophy – to seek wisdom and explore the meaning of life – to the core of his research. He is the author of the books: Living Philosophy: Reflections on Life, Meaning and Morality (2001), Middle Age (The Art of Living) (2009), How to Deal with Adversity (2014) and The Philosophy of Tragedy (2016), as well as of a school textbook on philosophy, Understanding Philosophy (2003).

We’re pleased that the third meeting of the Reality TV Watching Group will be co-hosted by Anya Browne, we’d like to focus on a handful of her characters to understand how they operate both within and outside of the productions. Since both series have built big franchises we will also include some of their British and international spin-offs.

As usual, we’d like to invite those attending the watching group to send suggested clips in advance that they would like to discuss together, though there is no requirement to do this in order to come along and take part. This group aims to present reality TV shows for critical and collective engagement to understand how their ubiquitous presence is shaping our culture.

The second meeting of the Reality TV Watching Group will hone in on love and dating in reality TV. From the competition format to scripted reality sagas mapping the romantic lives of a show’s stars, ideas of ‘real’ love are omnipresent in many of our favourite reality shows today. We’d like to invite those attending the watching group to send suggested clips in advance that they would like to discuss together, though there is no requirement to do this in order to come along and take part.

Reality television shows enjoy ubiquitous presence but rarely attract critical viewing. This watching group presents them for active and collective engagement to understand where, and how, do they stand within our culture.

Wojciech Kosma is a member of a Warsaw performance collective Rzeczywistość Emocjonalna and, alongside Johanna Hedva and Sebstian Fäth, of a Berlin noise-punk band Important Part. His collaborative performances have been shown in Chisenhale Gallery, Human Resources and Modern Art Museum in Warsaw among others.

We invite you for dinner and a group discussion on the question of ‘how can we make art practice sustainable?’ Through shared stories and experiences, we hope to visualize new models for financing projects, beyond the commercial gallery, the side jobs, or Arts Council grants.

Health Mate Cafe 191 Caledonian Rd, London N1 0SL

Is the site of the exhibition or cinema crucial to the scale of a production i.e. its value and impact? What are the rules and transgressions in such a space, and is the benefit of working in ‘artist’ moving image simply a greater sense of autonomy/experimentation compared to TV or cinema? How can artists successfully transfer to such a popular audience without falling into the trappings of auteur conservatism or studio system politics?

Join David Panos and Matthew Noel-Tod for a discussion/screening around scale and distribution for film and video, presenting rough cuts of their own work and others.

As more and more artists distribute work via screen based networks online, what problems arise through this form of distribution? Online content is increasingly perfected by algorithms for large commodified networks to an individual, where likes and dislikes are filtered and archived to better results; how does this change the audience for film/video? In contrast, cinema employs strict rules in production to target certain social and political groups, using focus groups to determine edits, casting and production values.

Can artists formulate ideas to produce work for such a structure without creating highly customised individual content or generalised platitudes, and is this even a problem?

Join Cecile B Evans and James Bridle for a group discussion (accompanied by a screening of their work) about distribution, image production, network visibility and the Sony hack.

This discussion is the second event of the Post Cinematic Orientation season organised by Dan Ward.

James Bridle is an artist, writer, and publisher based in London, UK. His writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, Domus, Cabinet, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Observer and many others, in print and online. His artworks have been commissioned and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. He lectures regularly at universities, conferences and other events. His formulation of the New Aesthetic research project has spurred debate and creative work across multiple disciplines. His work can be found at http://booktwo.org.

Cécile B. Evans is a Belgian American artist based in Berlin and London. She is the 2012 recipient of the Emdash Award (now Frieze Award), and the 2013 recipient of the Push Your Art Prize, resulting in the commission of a new video work for the Palais de Tokyo (Paris). She is the creator of AGNES, the first digital commission for the Serpentine Galleries (curated by Ben Vickers), a project which has grown internationally across platforms. Recent shows include Seventeen Gallery (London), “TTTT” at Jerwood Visual Arts Foundation (London), “La Voix Humaine” at Kunstverein Munich, “Phantom Limbs” at Pilar Corrias Gallery (London), and “Desire” at Bergen Kunstmuseum.

Matthew Noel-Tod (born 1978) Selected exhibitions and screenings include: The Politics of Amnesia II, CGP London (2015), A Season in Hell 3D, Banner Repeater, London (2014) Assembly: A Survey of Recent Artists’ Film and Video in Britain 2008–2013, Tate Britain, London (2013). As a Director of Photography, Noel-Tod has worked on many artists’ films, including works by Anja Kirschner & David Panos, Melanie Gilligan, Laure Prouvost, Rachel Reupke, David Lamelas, Sturtevant, Grace Schwindt and Elizabeth Price.

David Panos is a London-based artist who produces videos, installations and music. He has frequently worked in collaboration with Anja Kirschner and they were the winners of the Jarman Award in 2011 for their long form narrative video works that use historical and cinematic material to explore the relation of art and culture to class, political economy and power. Recent solo shows include: Albert Baronian, Brussels, 2015, Liste, Basel 2014, ICA, London 2014, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 2013; Secession, Vienna, 2012; Artist Space, New York, 2012; castillo/corrales, Paris, 2011; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, 2011; Kunsthall Oslo, Oslo, 2011.

Ed Baxter began as a sculptor and conceptual artist before he created and ran Resonance 104.4 FM, an experimental arts and sound radio station in London. Resonance programming is directed by Baxter with over 300 volunteer staff. It is supported by the London Musicians Collective and Arts Council England.

-Critical Aesthetics: roundtable w/ Tim Ivison, Harry Weeks, Isaac Marrero-Guillamón

-Artists and the Property Market, w/ Kirsten Forkert, Silvie Jacobi, and Paul Pieroni

Octavo Books practices a unique bookshop model, originated and run by Boris Jardine, a History of Science Curator at the Science Museum in London. Based on intensive historical research and drawing on a large private collection, Octavo offers only a few rare and important books at a time. A new web project is underway that will archive the work of running Octavo Books, sorting its research and images into a series of reading lists, syllabi and other resources.

Mark Pawson has been experimenting with self-organized museums and collections for over 30 years. His extensive and unique library of printed matter includes zines, mail art, small press art publications, and a large number of miscellaneous print phenomenon. Mark also creates his own books, and distributes hard to find artist books. Mark has recently ‘unboxed’ his archive in a solo exhibition at Xero Kline & Coma.