JWTC Newsletter
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Dear Friends, We would like to welcome you to the 2013 Session of the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC). The Session will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa from June 23 to July 2, 2013 under the theme The Life of Forms. Founded in 2008 as an independent and interdisciplinary platform in the Faculty of the Humanities, the JWTC has established itself as an international node for experimenting with critical theory. Since 2012 it has been relocated to the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISER). The 2013 Session is organized in collaboration with The Mail and Guardian. The 2013 participants come from various parts of the world, including Latin America, Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada, and the rest of the African Continent. Public events include panels, exhibitions, round tables, film projections (with Trinh Minh-ha), book launches, as well as public lectures by William Kentridge, Arjun Appadurai, Jane Guyer, Eyal Weizman, Sue Van Zyl, Ato Quayson, Achille Mbembe, Ackbar Abbas, Edgar Peterse, Teresa Caldeira and others. Composer and librettist Neo Muyanga will perform and Ntone Edjabe, the founder of Chimurenga, will hold a conversation about the magazine. The following areas of debate and inquiry will be privileged: architecture and city forms, literature, politics, democracy and the arts, dance and music, technologies of the digital age. All events are open to the public on a first-come-first seated basis until the room is full, and the William Kentridge performances require you to RSVP to Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za . To see the full programme please click here. We are pleased to share with you below more detail on those events which are opened to the public.
Five Drawing Lessons by William Kentridge First delivered as Six Drawing Lessons at Harvard University (USA) in 2012, as part of the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in Poetry, these lectures will form the backbone of the 2013 JWTC program. They will take place at the Wits Theatre, which is celebrating its 30th year. The lectures are free and open to the public. Booking for each lecture is however essential and can be done with Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za . Thursday, June 20 Drawing Lesson One - In Praise of Shadows 6.30pm, Drinks 7pm - 8.15pm, Lecture One Sunday, June 23 Drawing Lesson Two - A Brief History of Colonial Revolts 4pm, Drinks 4.30pm – 5.45pm, Lecture Two Sunday, June 30 Drawing Lesson Three - Vertical Thinking: A Johannesburg Biography 11am, Tea and Coffee 11.30am - 12.45pm, Lecture Three 12.45pm – 2.15pm, Lunch Drawing Lesson Four - Life in the Studio 2.15pm - 3.30pm, Lecture Four Tuesday, July 2 Question and Answer Session 5.30pm - 6.30pm Drawing Lesson Five - In Praise of Mistranslation 6.30pm, Drinks 7pm - 8.15pm, Lecture Five
This JWTC Lecture Series with William Kentridge is co-sponsored by various units of the Office of the Vice Chancellor, The Wits Theatre, The Goethe Institut, The Mail and Guardian and The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. *Image c/o Lightfarm
Public Lectures More than perhaps at any other period of the late modern age, forms permeate contemporary life-worlds and practices, generating effects of various kinds and, in the process, redistributing the sensible. Expressed in physical, social, legal, aesthetic, economic, imaginary, virtual or immaterial terms, they have an effective presence in our culture and make the same claim to reality and immediacy as more tangible artefacts. They have acquired a social life of their own. Thoughts on the Capitalist Imaginary (June 24 from 10am to 12pm) by renowned anthropologist and public thinker Arjun Appadurai (New York University), author of The Future as Cultural Fact. Essays on the Global Condition (Verso, 2012). Four Types of Anomaly and the Politics of Form (June 25 from 9am to 11am) by Sue van Zyl, former Director of the Graduate Center for the Humanities (University of the Witwatersrand). Forensic Architecture (June 26 from 9am to 11am) by architect Eyal Weizman (Goldsmiths’ College, London), author of Hollow Land (Verso, 2011). Democracy in the Age of Animism (June 27 from 6pm to 8pm) by theorist Achille Mbembe (WISER, University of the Witwatersrand), author of On the Postcolony (University of California Press, 2000) and Sortir de la grande nuit (La Découverte, 2010). Is Confusion a Form? (June 28 from 9am to 11am) by economic and cultural anthropologist Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins University), author of Marginal Gain (University of Chicago Press, 2008) in collaboration with Moises Lino e Silva (Brandeis University) and Kabiru Salami (University of Ibadan) Poor Theory and Junk Space (July 1 from 9am to 11am) by critic Ackbar Abbas (University of California at Irvine), author of Hong Kong and the Politics of Disappearance (University of Minnesota Press, 2000). Cosmograms: Re-reading Western Modernity Through Architecture (July 1 from 3.30pm to 4.30pm) by Bernd Scherer (Director of House of World Cultures, Berlin). Oxford Street, Accra. Urban Theory and Performative Streetscape (July 2 from 9am to 11.00am) by literary critic Ato Quayson (University of Toronto), author of Aesthetic Nervousness (Columbia University Press, 2007).
Public Platforms, Roundtables, Panels and Conversations If forms have turned into the movement of life itself, where does this leave the social, the political, the aesthetic, or the subject? What prospects and possibilities does it open for democracy, freedom, the human and the non-human in our times? The Chimurenga Chronicles (June 24 from 3pm to 5.30pm). Public conversation with writer and DJ Ntone Edjabe (Founder of Chimurenga Magazine) and historian and theorist Achille Mbembe (author of On the Postcolony). Poor Form (June 25 from 2.30pm to 4pm) by Singapore-based architects Joshua Comaroff and Ong-Ker Shing (Lekker Design, Singapore), authors of Horror in Architecture (2013). City Forms: Views From the Peripheries (June 25 from 5pm to 7pm) by South African urbanist Edgar Pieterse (Director of the African Center for Cities, University of Cape Town), author of Counter-Currents: Experiments in Sustainability in the Cape Region (Jacana, 2010) and geographer Teresa Caldeira (University of California at Berkeley), author of City of Walls (Duke University Press, 2000). The Camp as a Political Project (June 26 from 2.30pm to 4.30pm) by the Bethlehem-based architect Sandi Hilal (Decolonizing Architecture Institute) and urbanist Alessandro Petti (Director of DAI, Bethlehem, Palestine) Cooking Data (June 28 from 2.30pm to 4.30pm) by US-based theorist and Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute David Goldberg (University of California at Irvine), author of The Threat of Race and Nishant Shah (Center for Internet and Society), author of Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Hermes Divided (June 29 from 11.30am to 1pm) by James Webb (artist and experimental musician whose work has been presented around the world at institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the Venice Biennale).
Trinh Minh-ha in Johannesburg The author, among others, of The Digital Film Event (Routledge, 2005), world-renowned musical composer, independent film maker, postcolonial and feminist theory and professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley, Trin Minh-ha is in Johannesburg. Public Lecture and Discussion (June 27 from 2.30pm to 4.30pm), by author of Vernacular Architecture of West Africa: A World in Dwelling (Routledge, 2011). Film by Trin-Minh-ha to be screened followed by question and answer session by invitation only due to limited seating (June 26 from 7pm to 9pm).
Book Launches Leading globalization scholar and acclaimed author presents a decade’s research toward creating an anthropology of the future. The Future as a Cultural Act by Arjun Appadurai (New York University) with contributions by Achille Mbembe (WISER, University of the Witwatersrand), Jane Guyer (Johns Hopkins University), Dilip Menon (Director, Center for Indian Studies in Africa) and Hylton White (Department of Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand). Chaired by Adam Habib (Vice Chancellor and Principal, University of the Witwatersrand). Through an investigation that spans architecture, art and literature, Comaroff and Shing illuminate horror through its shifting forms and meanings and identify a creeping unease that lingers at the center of the modern project. Horror in Architecture by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker Shing (Lekker Design, Singapore) with a contribution by Sarah Nuttall, (Director, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research). Chaired by Rob Moore (Deputy Vice Chancellor, Wits).
Musical Performances and Exhibitions At a time when more than half of the world’s population is living in cities, the effects of climatic change on urban life and culture can no longer be ignored. The Exhibition Post-Oil City: The History of the City’s Future presents innovative projects in Africa, Asia, and America that address urgent questions such as: How will the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy affect the process of urban design and planning? How will the use of renewable energies affect urban metabolism and the politics of form and mobility? Post-Oil City (June 25, 7pm). Exhibition Opening at The Goethe Institut. Parallel to the Workshop, a program of interventions and stagings is held at Goethe-on-Main in the Maboneng District. The relationships between theory and arts-based practices are explored. Speakers in the Workshop extend their theoretical work. The concept of form is revisited through visual, audial, performed and spatial dimensions. A laboratory for practice-based theory or stage for concepts is invented at the confluence of texts, images and sounds. The Life of Forms Project Space. Exhibition Opening (June 28 from 6.30pm) South African composer and librettist Neo Muyanga teams up with El Warsha, one of Egypt’s most acclaimed story-telling troupes. Together, in a music workshop and final one-off performance, they describe how they created the songs and stories that gave expression to the frustrations felt by those gathered daily around Tahrir Square during the revolution. They are joinded by South by South, a Johannesburg-based collective of curators who present a selection of protest songs written for Oliver R. Tambo and perfornmed live by a contemporary jazz Ensemble. Aesthetics in Protest in Studio. Music Workshop with South African composer and librettist Neo Muyanga in collaboration with Cairo-based El Warsha Troupe, Marcus Wyatt and The General from the South by South DJ Collective (June 27, 12pm to 1pm). Aesthetic in Protest. Public Musical Performance with Neo Muyanga in collaboration with Cairo-based El Warsha Troupe, Marcus Wyatt and The General from the South by South DJ Collective (June 29, 3.30pm to 5pm)
The Life of Forms Project Space, 28 June - 7 July, Goethe-on-Main FORM>FORMULATION>FORM> The JWTC project space: FORM>FORMULATION […] proposes a situation of interference, questioning and dialogue with theory. The historically antagonistic encounter between practice and theory will be subjected to, interventions and reimaginings by theorists and artists. The JWTC at Goethe on Main, will be an experiment using a contemporary art project space as a vehicle for curating theory. Somewhere between exhibition and symposium, the project space at the 2013 JWTC explores the correspondences and discontinuities between theory and practice in ways that explode the categories of form and content. The Life of Forms, the theme of the 2013 JWTC, will mobilize something not quite a structure and more than a framework. The theme will provide a kind of catalyst for the numerous strategies adopted in the space. The propositions by the artists and theorists involved will develop the concept of form in relation to a diverse range of concerns, which include: The archive/Information/Theory/ The space itself will be modular and multifunctional as it operates simultaneously as working, discussion or presentation environment while at the same time restituting ideas generated from the JWTC workshops both past and present. As a result, some of the interventions and collaborations in the space will be developed in a real-time relationship to the workshops in 2013 while others will take a retroactive view of how theory manifests in documentation by working through archival material from past JWTC’s. The participants and speakers at the 2013 JWTC are a crucial component to this project space. They exist alternatively (or simultaneously) as audiences, focus groups, points of critical feedback, collaborators, actors, agents or instigators. Alongside or within this core structure are a range of theorists/artists who have been invited to intervene in the space. This includes: *image from a video by Mabeba Motlatjo Ashley "Shadows" 2012
Dance Party The annual South-by-South Party with DJ's General S’bu, The Smiling Lion and Ntone Edjabe. You are gauranteed to be exposed to amazing Southern beats to be found nowhere else in Johannesburg. Saturday, June 29 from 9pm Entry Fee - R70 Venue: To be confirmed (check back on website programme)
2013 Fellows Blas Zach (Duke University)
Speakers Arjun Apppadurai (New York University), author of The Future as a Cultural Act (Verso, 2012).
June events @ WISER Below is a summary of the programme at WISER for June. For more detail on each event please visit the WISER website. 3rd June, 3pm
JWTC Team Convenors Kelly Gillespie (Wits, Department of Anthropology) Johannesburg Salon Juan Orrantia (Visual Editor) JWTC Blog Annie Leatt (Editor)
Credits The Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism acknowledges the support of The Office of the Vice Chancellor; the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Partnerships and Strategic Operations; the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs; the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations; the Office of the Dean of the Humanities; the School of Social Sciences; Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. The The Mail and Guardian are media partners of the 2013 Session on The Life of Forms. The William Kentridge Lecture Series Five Drawing Lessons has been organized in partnership with The Mail and Guardian and The Wits Theatre. Contact |