Verina Gfader

Verina Gfader | Goldsmiths, University of London / University of Huddersfield, UK Day 1, 9 November, De Bijloke Foyer, 12:30-13:00 This is a proposal for a more open and communal approach to dark precursor in the sense of not suggesting a traditional presentation, but rather a production-in-time. On the basis of my experience and editorial/research/textual artistic practice, I propose to “archive” or “protocol” the conference, engaging with what is happening there directly and with the community. The focus will be on one day in particular. The taking account of the “now” may also include looking at the actual surroundings and topography of/around the Orpheus Institute: meteorologies—study of the atmo-sphere . . . which could potentially lead into a piece of printed matter or a virtual resource (score, glossary, poster, semi-fictional account) with the focus on a collective voice rather than my own individual self. An alternative format of what is called conference proceedings?! Conference participants should be aware of my activity of collecting during the event and of the subsequent piece, which is to be published and made accessible to readers in the conference proceedings. (Former projects can be found there too, to underline my continuing work on printed matter, textualities, and re-formatting formats.) De-authored production is the natural state of things, for artists, curators, and producers. The idea of authorship in terms of autonomy or ownership is a market term, not a philosophical one. Nothing exists in a void, and that’s why the word process always pops up (or its contemporary synonym, research)—the process of how a community or an idea emerges . . . I think what we do is editing, not publishing. (Eldahab 2011) Unfolding the connections of the intervention to Deleuze/Guattari here is grounded in expanding the thinking around fabulation, the “act of legending,” and communities—that is, a people to come—essentially to reclaim a space and voice for futurity (the capital of time) as it is trapped in our lives, inextricably linked with the false supremacy of capitalism. Fabulation is a superior concept because its essence is to activate the “powers of the false,” to falsify orthodox truths in the process of generating emergent truths. To fabulate, in Pierre Perrault’s words, is to “legend in flagrante delicto” (cited in Deleuze 1989, 150; translation modified), and in doing so, to summon forth a ‘people to come’. (Bogue 2011) Further references to Deleuze and Guattari: there are sensual, methodological, intense–flat, conceptual, diagrammatic, stratigraphic, mad connections emphasised in the way my art research is one among many, whose work is heavily informed by their various elaborations. Recent interest includes specifically Guattari’s legacy in relation to the minor cinema (futurity, animation) and then again, and again, La Borde economies. The title is a homage to More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction by Kodwo Eshun (1998).

BACK TO INDEX

T H E D A R K

P R E C U R S O R

International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research

DARE 2015 | Orpheus Institute | Ghent | Belgium | 9-11 November 2015

O P E N - A C C E S S R I C H - M E D I A P R O C E E D I N G S

Edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici

T H E D A R K

P R E C U R S O R

International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research

DARE 2015 | Orpheus Institute | Ghent | Belgium | 9-11 November 2015

O P E N - A C C E S S R I C H - M E D I A P R O C E E D I N G S

Edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici

Goldsmiths, University of London, and University of Huddersfield, UK

More Brilliant Than the Past

Day 1, 9 November, De Bijloke Foyer, 12:30–13:00

This is a proposal for a more open and communal approach to dark precursor in the sense of not suggesting a traditional presentation, but rather a production-in-time. On the basis of my experience and editorial/research/textual artistic practice, I propose to “archive” or “protocol” the conference, engaging with what is happening there directly and with the community. The focus will be on one day in particular. The taking account of the “now” may also include looking at the actual surroundings and topography of/around the Orpheus Institute: meteorologies—study of the atmo-sphere . . . which could potentially lead into a piece of printed matter or a virtual resource (score, glossary, poster, semi-fictional account) with the focus on a collective voice rather than my own individual self. An alternative format of what is called conference proceedings?!

Conference participants should be aware of my activity of collecting during the event and of the subsequent piece, which is to be published and made accessible to readers in the conference proceedings. (Former projects can be found there too, to underline my continuing work on printed matter, textualities, and re-formatting formats.)

De-authored production is the natural state of things, for artists, curators, and producers. The idea of authorship in terms of autonomy or ownership is a market term, not a philosophical one. Nothing exists in a void, and that’s why the word process always pops up (or its contemporary synonym, research)—the process of how a community or an idea emerges . . . I think what we do is editing, not publishing. (Eldahab 2011)

Unfolding the connections of the intervention to Deleuze/Guattari here is grounded in expanding the thinking around fabulation, the “act of legending,” and communities—that is, a people to come—essentially to reclaim a space and voice for futurity (the capital of time) as it is trapped in our lives, inextricably linked with the false supremacy of capitalism.

Fabulation is a superior concept because its essence is to activate the “powers of the false,” to falsify orthodox truths in the process of generating emergent truths. To fabulate, in Pierre Perrault’s words, is to “legend in flagrante delicto” (cited in Deleuze 1989, 150; translation modified), and in doing so, to summon forth a ‘people to come’. (Bogue 2011)

Further references to Deleuze and Guattari: there are sensual, methodological, intense–flat, conceptual, diagrammatic, stratigraphic, mad connections emphasised in the way my art research is one among many, whose work is heavily informed by their various elaborations. Recent interest includes specifically Guattari’s legacy in relation to the minor cinema (futurity, animation) and then again, and again, La Borde economies.

The title is a homage to More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction by Kodwo Eshun (1998).

References

Bogue, Ronald. 2011. “Deleuze and Guattari and the Future of Politics: Science Fiction, Protocols and the People to Come.” Deleuze Studies 5, supplement: 77–97. Accessed 14 October 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/dls.2011.0038.

ElDahab, Mai Abu. 2011. “Mai Abu in conversation with Will Holder.” In From Berkeley to Berkeley: Objectif Exhibitions, 2008–2010, edited by Mai Abu ElDahab, 10–11. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Verina Gfader is an artist and researcher based in London. Beyond academic work she is Creative Director for EP, a new book series across art, architecture, and design from Sternberg Press, Berlin; she is currently researching for the second volume, Design Fiction. Her postdoctoral research, after studies in visual media, photography, and fine arts, included a research residency at Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) to explore the structural coherence between non-commercial Japanese animation and geographical, institutional, and social ideas. Her current focus is on animation–vital lines–concepts of vitality; volcano islands, statelessness, and distant fictions; cognitive capitalism; and text and alliance, expanded geographical space, and the accumulative nature of knowledge in art. In her practice she pursues models, drawing, text material, and fictional institutions. Projects include Adventure-Landing: A Compendium of Animation (authored book, 2011), “Talk Geometries: Towards Anime’s Sensorial Vocabularies” (invited speaker), Kinema Club Conference for Film and Moving Images from Japan XIII, Reischauer Institute, Harvard University (2014); and “Saas-Fee Summer Institute: Art and the Politics of Estrangement” (participant), Saas-Fee, Switzerland (2015).

Tip

Tip

Verina Gfader

More Brilliant Than the Past