CONFERENCE, APRIL 2-4, 2004, 
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR THE MOVING IMAGE,
MELBOURNE.
 

MORE INFORMATION AND ONLINE REGISTRATION
<http://acmi.net.au/empires>http://acmi.net.au/empires
Contact:
<http://aa.f138.mail.yahoo.com/ym//ym/Compose?To=empires@acmi.net.au&YY=97963&order=down&sort=date&pos=0>empires@acmi.net.au

LIMITED PLACES AVAILABLE
 
 

This conference was conceived in order to  develop and extend  key
themes emerging from  the ground-breaking conference Complex
Entanglements: Art & Cultural Difference & Globalization held in
Sydney in 2001. It also is an attempt to address the new conditions
of cultural production as the focus of globalization expands from its
economic origins to an explicitly military agenda.  Empires, Ruins
+Networks examines the place of art in a world that is being
deliberately polarized by the fear of terror. After September 11th
the political imaginary has been gripped by a need to build defensive
measure against unknown threats. The map of the world is being
redrawn. Civil liberties and critical discourse have been pressed
into new loyalty tests.

Empires, Ruins +Networks sets out to provoke a dialogue between art
and politics. It will ask artists, critics and curators to think of
the place and function of art in the contemporary world. It will
question how artists can contribute to cultural and technological
change. While the debates on art and cultural difference have been
raging for decades, current circumstances are compelling us to
reframe the issues.  The complexity of cultural flows and exchanges
sustained through new media practices defy older ethno-nationalist
representations of cultural identity. In the context of new border
crossings by migrants and refugees, and the formation of new social
collectivities there is a need to develop links that can be forged
both across distant spaces and within local places.

Empires, Ruins +Networks will seek to explore the shifting forms of
otherness and the new modes of cultural production in contemporary
culture. It will question the politics of fear that is supporting a
new authoritarianism. It will seek to build bridges across the South.
It will speak against the attempt to silence the histories of
indigenous and immigrant communities. It will propose new models of
artistic and cultural collaboration that will expand the democratic
principles of public culture.

The emphasis in the content and form of Empires, Ruins +Networks will
be peer-to-peer participation and discussion.  The conference will be
structured around a relatively small number of high quality
presentations, opening the space for discussion workshops and
critical feedback to the presenters in open fora.
 
 

CONFERENCE PROGRAM
 

Keynote address (Friday April 2, 7.30pm)

CRISIS IN GLOBAL CAPITAL AND THE WAR ON CULTURE

Okwui Enwezor (USA) Artistic Director, Documenta
 
 

Saturday April 3

Morning session

MAPPING FLOWS AND LINKING CLUSTERS

Lisa Reihana (Aotearoa/ New Zealand) Artist
Carlos Cappelan (Uruguay/Spain) Artist
Kendell Geers (South Africa) Artist

Afternoon session

RACIALIZED SPACES: THE WITNESS IN THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE

Stefano Boeri (Italy) Architect, Multiplicity
Simryn Gill (Australia/Malaysia) Artist
Ana Kokkinos (Australia) Filmmaker
 
 

Sunday April 4

Morning session

THE BURDEN OF CULTURE IN THE GLOBAL CITY

Don Bates (USA/ Australia) Architect, LAB Architecture Studio
Eddie Berg (UK), Exective Director, FACT, Liverpool
Virginia Pérez Rattón (Costa Rica) Director TEOR/éTica

Afternoon

NEW MODELS OF COLLABORATION

Ross Gibson (Australia) Research Professor of New Media & Digital
Culture, UTS.

Marina Fokidis (Greece) Director of Oxymoron Artspace, Greece.
Nikos Papastergiadis (Australia) Deputy Director. Australia Centre,
University of Melbourne.
 

Presented by The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne, the
Media and Communications Program, University of Melbourne, and the
Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

This project has been assisted by the Federal Government through the
Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.  It is an
initiative of the Australia Council's Arts in a Multicultural
Australia Policy.
 

This information was supplied or passed on by
Scott McQuire.

It was forwarded to us by
Fátima Lasay http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/digiteer/