Newsletter

UNNEEDED CONVERSATIONS 2012 – LOW COST
International Seminar on the practice and theory of art
FBAUP, Porto, 16-19 May

Info and registration:
www.unneeded.i2ads.org
www.i2ads.org/unneeded2012/registration/on-line-form/ 

Organization:
Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS) / Research Group in Art and Intermedia

Hosted by:
School of Fine Arts – University of Porto (FBAUP)

Coordination and General Edition:
Miguel Leal  and Fernando José Pereira (FBAUP)

Invited Editors:
UNEDITED – Mário Moura (FBAUP) and Sofia Gonçalves (FBAUL)
UNTAKEN – Pedro Bandeira (UM)

We have decided to look reality in the face and organize these unneeded conversations under the label of low cost. We all recognize this term, though only from the standpoint of consumption and the possibility of profit generation. We know the airlines, the hotels, the restaurants, the outlets -; in short, a whole reality that prevails in the visible face of the contemporary economy, and is as happy as it is delusive, since the low cost brought not only the democratization of consumption but also the imposition of precariousness as a bargaining chip.

The notion of low cost – and its dependent precarious forms – isn’t exclusive to financial economics and opens a whole new and unsuspected productive field of thought and action. As we know there are other economies which can also be seen in the light of low cost. Think only on artistic practice and on the discovery of new forms of action that integrate precariousness as a powerful means to continue to produce sense; think on the forms of mediation that resist to the obsession of technological novelty or to the myth of transparent communication; think on the re-appropriation of the degraded public space of cities and its loose transformation; think on the outbreak of the author’s edition and the construction of alternative ways of publishing; think, in short, on how the precarious character of some of these realities is exactly what gives them a productive status and a resistance to the mainstream of low cost.

The UNC 2012 discussion topics, one per day, are the following:

may 16 - UNGOVERNABLE: The precarious politics of art
may  17 - UNTAKEN: Public Space, Back to Normality
may 18 - UNEDITED: Pocket Publication: the Economy of Publishing
may 19 - UNFUELED: The Potentiality of Media and its Shadows

UNNEEDED CONVERSATIONS 2012 – LOW COST will take place from May, 16 to  May, 19,  at the Fine Arts faculty of the University of Porto and other venues, and will include further activities such as workshops, exhibitions and concerts.

Confirmed apeakers:
Marcelo Campos (Rio de Janeiro), Von Calhau (Porto), John Körmeling (Eidhoven), Francisco Ferreira (Porto), Miguel Silva Graça (Lisboa), Xosé Lois Gutiérrez (Santiago de Compostela), Xavier Monteys Roig (Barcelona), Arantza Lauzirika (Bilbao), Daniel Ribeiro (BR), Miguel Wandschneider (Lisboa), Pedro Cid Proença (Londres), Bruno Dias (Lisboa), Phil Baber (Amesterdam), and the collectives Joana & Mariana (PT) Punkto (PT), Pangrama (PT) and Embankment (PT).

More info at: www.unneeded.i2ads.org

published on March 25, 2012