CONTINENTAL DRIFT - The Ground*

CONTINENTAL DRIFT 2 0 0 8
The Ground*

For more information:
http://www.16beavergroup.org/drift/

Working Schedule
The idea for the schedule is that it should be subjected to change based on our needs and desires over the course of the event. It is more like an approximation

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FRIDAY EVENING
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18:00 - 18:30 Informal Introductions
19:00 - 20:20 Henry C K Liu
The Case Against Market Fundamentalism
20:20 - 21:30 Question + Answer + Conversation
21:30 - 23:00 Dinner & Drinks

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SATURDAY
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12:00 - 12:30 Tea, Coffee
12:30 - 13:30 Open Session / Discussion of Reading

Neoliberal Urbanism: Cities And the Rule of Markets (Neil Brenner, Jamie Peck, Nik Theodore)
13:30 - 14:00 Andy Bichlbaum
Yes Men in New Orleans.
14:00 - 14:30 Coalition of Groups Fighting Columbia Gentrification of Harlem
14:30 - 15:00 Claire Pentecost How the growing environmental /climate change/water preciousness/
food consciousness is effecting urban organizing.
15:00 - 17:30 Neil Smith
Mega Gentrification

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SUNDAY
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12:00 - 12:30 Tea, Coffee
13:00 - 13:30 Hakan Topal - xurban_collective
Possibility of Justice and Justification of Artistic Production
13:30 - 14:00 Marty Lucas
Cyber-Urbanism in Southern African
14:00 - 14:30 Video interview with Jeff Halper -Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Good Architecture
14:30 - 15:00 Scott Berzofsky, Dane Nester, Nicholas Wisniewski
Practicing Ecosophy in East Baltimore
15:00 - 16:00 Break
16:00 - 18:00 Brian Holmes
Escape the Overcode: Guattari’s Schizoanalytic Cartographies, or the Pathic Core at the Heart of Cybernetics

19:00 - 21:30 Final Discussion

“Prospects” for upcoming Continental Drift in Zagreb and the Radical Midwest Cultural Corridor
+ thinking about further NYC prospects (over dinner)

Unfortunate exchanges and the issues between the co-curators of Manifesta 7- Raqs Media Collective and xurban_collective

To the Public;

As cultural producers, we obviously need to have some sort of infrastructure so that we can continue to present our work. Over the last decade we worked with many institutions, curators and organizers. When our projects involved political risks and/or physical danger, we received necessary trust and support, which we require to produce our work effectively.

Our main task involves observation of vast socio-political transformations and we try to make salient research and production. We tend to analyze large processes in specific instances, by actively positioning ourselves and facing problems and taking risks. We think that collaborations and intellectual exchange are vital for our understanding of the positions of “alternative-global resistance”. As artists, we operate in highly charged political circumstances that are at times exposed to harsh criticism and in certain parts of the world, to mental and literal persecution. Nevertheless, we try to keep apart artistic production and social-political activism. Our means, tools and venues of critique are preferably within the pockets that can be found in the art establishment.

In the same vein, we are not project junkies, i.e. we do not apply to museums or biennials to be shown at every possible occasion. We do not run after funding opportunities either, not because of inertia, but on the contrary, because we think that this type of ‘professionalism’ ultimately dilute artistic/political potentials and create mental dependencies on institutional processes. We are usually invited to shows through our intellectual connections, or through organizers who contact us via our website. As part of the contemporary cultural-institutional package, we recognize that curators have ultimate responsibility in selecting artists and these selection processes pose risks and conceptual difficulties for both artists and curators. Furthermore, we appreciate that to organize such big exhibitions are not simple tasks and curators may choose to work or not to work with a specific artist!

When Raqs Media Collective officially invited us to participate in Manifesta7 (note that we did not contact them), we kindly accepted the opportunity to develop a new work for the show. We met with Shuddhabrata Sengupta in September during the 10th Istanbul Biennial, when we were presenting two of our works in Istanbul Modern and Santral Istanbul. We had a constructive meeting and discussed Raqs’ exhibition proposal, general geo-political issues and our previous and current work.

Issues

Our initial agreeable experience with Raqs Media Collective transformed into series of distasteful correspondences after their miscalculated accusations, quick and inaccurate assumptions. We now feel the necessity to share these written exchanges with the public (please see the attached e-mails)! It was indeed very disappointing to see an internationally recognized art group’s lack of intellectual understanding, unneeded offensive attitude, and most importantly its failure to differentiate between artistic position and curatorial responsibility! Looking retrospectively, we see that Raqs’ didactic, authoritarian manner and careless finger pointing created an unproductive situation.

Once more, we think that art requires taking active risks, it involves visual research and production and it continues where the language stops. We wrote position papers and proposals to give glimpse of ideas so that we could ‘communicate’ and exchange ideas with the curators. Obviously we are not subcontractors of other artists: we prefer to take our own intellectual risks and we certainly did not ask for this kind of unnecessary power journeys. At this point we have no reason to think that Raqs’ attitude is generated bona fide, but rather we think that their contradictory position reflect some sort of self enlargement as curators/artists, which is a common symptom of contemporary art subjectivities.

Finally, we definitely do not want to create a big deal out of this small unfortunate incident, and of course we do not have any harsh feelings either. Things happen and we have larger questions to tackle with! In writing and formulating these paragraphs, we think that curators of Manifesta7’s lack of professionalism and improper communication skills and attitude need to be exposed to the public. Therefore we would like to present all the correspondences between the parties as direct historical data!

Sincerely,
xurban_collective
February 2008

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