Why Theory?

• Main Authors: Dawson, Ben, Kirn, Gal, Sami Khatib, Tomšič, Samo, e.V., Jan van Eyck Alumni Association
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: ICI Berlin 2013
• Subjects: Bianchi; Jules; Moder; sami
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25620/e130715; https://oa.ici-berlin.org/repository/doi/10.25620/e130715

In times when norms of commerce and technology seem to pervade all activities, the example of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht stands out. Until its recent entrepreneurial recasting under austerity measures, the Academie had been a site of encounters which had surpassed the sterile confines of academia and the consensual norms of market-oriented work: it welcomed examinations and radical critiques of the spaces of artistic creation, theoretical inquiry and design, while also questioning the relations and boundaries between these fields. Building upon this experience, while at the same time surpassing its institutional limitations, it was our intention to construct a platform for collaboration between theorists, designers and artists by suspending the borders between their respective disciplines, by affirming the need for collective and experimental work, by engaging in projects which do not shy away from questioning the very possibilities of different domains, whether aesthetic, scientific or political. Within the framework of a three-day inaugural meeting, we presented and discussed works in design, art and theory by people formerly related to or supporting the Academie as well as others who are joining us. A series of lectures and performances, seminars and screenings, as well as displays of works and book presentations served not only as materials for a broader discussion, but also as a nucleus for future collaborative work.Monday 15 July 10:30 Welcome 10:45 Pietro Bianchi: Looking With No Eyes. The Lacanian Gaze and the Problem of Formalization of the Visual Field 11:15 Alan Smart: How to Design? 11:45 Coffee Break 12:15 Jonathan Short: On the Sovereignty of Value 12:45 Sami Khatib: Non-Realist Realism, Notes on Benjamin and Brecht 13:15 Benjamin Dawson: Why Practice? 13:45-15:45 Lunch Break 15:45 Nathaniel Boyd: Who Thinks Concretely? Hegel’s Critique of Political Abstraction 16:15 Agon Hamza: Žižek’s Althusser on Ideology 16:45-17:15 Coffee Break 17:15 Simone van Dijken: Mumbling with the Devil (performance) 18:00 Katja Kolšek: Chinese Language, Unconscious, and Poetry 18:30 Mladen Dolar: Officers, Maids and Chimneysweepers Tuesday 16 July 10:30 Gregor Moder: Why Not? 11:00 Alfie Brown: Divine Violence 11:30 Frank Ruda: The Ontico-Ontological Indifference 12:00-12:30 Coffee Break 12:30 Alexander Negrelli: Render Farm Apocalypse – On Digital Production Design 13:00 Giuseppe Bianco: French Philosophy. Analytic Philosophy and its Continental Roots 13:30 Tzuchien Tho: Jules Vuillemin. From French Epistemology and History of Science to Analytic Philosophy and back 14:00-16:00 Lunch Break 16:00 Olivier Surel: Why Reclaim Naturalism as Critical Theory? 16:30 Oxana Timofeeva: Why Cats? 17:00 Gal Kirn: Encounter between Cinema and Communism: Notes on Medvedkin’s Kinopoezd 17:30-18:00 Coffee Break 18:00 Stéphane Querrec and Anu Pennanen ‘Staande!/Debout!’ video + talk : Why Theory? , Workshop, workshop, ICI Berlin, 15–16 July 2013