New New New (Exhausted)…

Hello class and affiliates!
Tmrw is first class meeting, 2pm 115 as usual. Most people will be Beirut already, see programme below. This term, all dates still tb finalised.
exchange with Clemens v. Wedemeyers bunch in Leipzig around his seminar topic: Social Science Fiction on 29.4, 13.5 and 27.5..
self-organised video seminar, details tbc soon, dates:
06.05. + 07.05.  afternoon
14.05. (wednesday) + 15.05. (thursday) afternoon
Seminar with Jesse Darling on gesture, performance, digital art/work/labour.
In [re]search of the real[ness]: a short collaborative enquiry
aka: The Work Labour of Art in the Age of Digital [Re]Production
At a time in which [artistic] production is dominated by partially automated processes (e.g. Photoshop, editing softwares) and various practices of outsourcing, the old question formerly levelled at non-commodity works of the avant-garde, such as performance, assemblage and installation, has morphed into a new question: where is the [artistic] gesture? The “artist’s hand” – and by extension, the [artist’s] body – seems to have fallen out of the discourse in the cyborg economy of signs and visual signifiers. Examining our own works and the legacy of recent art-historical precedents (from relational aesthetics to post-internet through live art and net art, and back again), we will undertake a series of practice-based researches together in search of what constitutes gesture in contemporary practice.“The artistic gesture – materialised in the brushstroke, drip, or other ‘painterly signifier’ – can come to signify not a specific motor action or somatic experience but instead ‘authenticity’ itself, the non-reproducibility and thus the marketability of the work of art.” (Carrie Noland). But could gesture also be a resource for resisting the convenient disappearance of the body (when only certain bodies get to disappear) and the homogenisation of all aesthetics under 3D?
Please email JD with a short statement of intent if you would like to attend and to arrange a one-to-one meeting. You’ll receive a short reading list (all of which will be available online), and the login details to a shared [public] tumblr where attendees are encouraged to post their own research, further readings, links etc. This will function as a logbook for the present, a roadmap for future research, and an archive after the fact.
3th May Introductions
10.00 – 11.00 JD’s introduction presentation
11.00 – 18.00 (with breaks) individual presentations & discussion
4th May In Search of the Gesture I: Bodies
11.00 – 13.00 collaborative body-based workshop jam using video and text, readings tbc
14.00 – 18.00 presentations, discussion
30 May-1 June Berlinale visit/ Sleep Salon [tbc]
Times & locations tbc. With special guests tbc.
One-to-one meetings tbc.
14th & 15th June How to De-Alienate Your Art Work in 24 hours: An Extreme Experiment
10.00 – 18.00 both days
15/6/14 18.00 – 22.00: Closing reception
Collaborative group workshop in immediacy, intuition, installation and realisation. With curator Ché Zara Blomfield (the Composing Rooms)