STATE OF EMERGENCY


	Register Print this Page - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Presentations by Slavoj Zizek Anselm Franke Boris Buden Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project Office for Metropolitan Architecture Dieter Lesage Introduction and moderation by Lieven De Cauter Organized by the Jan van Eyck Academie in association with the Stedelijk Museum CS. The Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project is supported by the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STATE OF EMERGENCY = NOW As the information age proceeds, the hegemonic coordinates of the present world order are changing in front of our very eyes. The nation state’s sovereignty is put under pressure by a myriad of inter-, sub- and trans-national forces. A new and entirely globalized form of sovereignty emerges, based on the permanent and ever-present exchange of capital, information and goods. As a result, the construct called ‘nation state’ – and its identity – cannot be founded merely on a continuation of values that we have come to think of as ‘sovereign’. Simultaneously, a whole range of ‘single-issue spaces’ and spaces of exclusion engulf the earth, challenging the political world map to an even greater degree. Terra incognita = everywhere. Design, architecture, theory and philosophy are increasingly relevant lines of approach as new political, spatial and informational conditions are explored. Rather than taking on passive or descriptive roles, they generate thought-provoking new ideas. Whether it is the temporary suspension of the juridical order, the mapping of a whole range of new political spaces emerging across the earth, the foundation of an inter-national tribunal questioning the ‘Project for a New American Century’, the design of an experimental identity for a law-free mini-state or rethinking the visual identity of the European Union, these disciplines are becoming key to an imaginative understanding of what territorial identity means today and what it might mean tomorrow. State of Emergency – Territorial Identity in the Post-Political Age questions the modern conception of the European nation-state, its self-definition and its visual representation. Modern sovereignty – and likewise, identity – has often defined itself against an outside ‘Other’. When the ‘Other’ is lacking, does this entail that one invents an imaginary ‘outside’ of one’s own in order to secure an even more imaginary inside – as is the case with the ‘Axis of Evil’, the hostile ‘Other’ that the West has conceived? And what about a trans-national entity that merely manifests itself in overweight politicians shaking hands on television? How is the transformation of the former Eastern bloc affecting Europe’s identity – and vice versa? What is the meaning and impact of ‘single issue spaces’, tax and internet havens, camps, states of exception and micro-nations? Do new conditions produce new symbolic realities and images? By bringing together architects, designers, academics, theorists and curators, State of Emergency aims to trigger off inspiring insights into the relevance of territorial identity today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PROGRAMME Thursday 23rd September 2004 12 noon Registration 2.00 p.m. Welcoming note: Jouke Kleerebezem 2.05 p.m. Introduction: Lieven De Cauter 2.15 p.m. Lectures: Slavoj Zizek, Anselm Franke, Boris Buden 4.30 p.m. Break 5.00 p.m. Lectures: Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project, 000000000000000Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Dieter Lesage 7.15 p.m. Break 7.30 p.m. Panel discussion moderated by Lieven De Cauter 8.00 p.m. End From 10.00 p.m. onwards – Club 11 party - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PRACTICAL INFORMATION Admission Tickets at € 7,00 All tickets can be picked up and paid for at the main entrance – ground floor of the Stedelijk Museum CS on 23rd September from 12 noon onwards. Registration (advance booking is recommended) Please use the online registration form to book your tickets prior to 22nd September. To register click here. Contact and registration by telephone Madeleine Bisscheroux, Jan van Eyck Academie madeleine.bisscheroux@janvaneyck.nl +31 (0) 43 3503729 Location Stedelijk Museum CS (Club 11, 11th floor) Oosterdokskade 5 1011 AD Amsterdam The Netherlands How to get there The Stedelijk Museum CS is a few minutes’ walk from Amsterdam Central Station. Please check at www.stedelijk.nl/ or www.bereikbaar.amsterdam.nl/ for a route description. More information is available at www.amsterdam.nl/ Further information www.janvaneyck.nl/ www.stedelijk.nl/ www.metahaven.net/ www.janvaneyck.nl/sealand - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE SPEAKERS Slavoj Zizek is philosopher, cultural theorist and professor at the Institute for Social Sciences (Ljubljana). Slavoj Zizek will speak about ’The right of those who were missed by the bombs’, in which he takes up a recent NBC debate on the Abu Ghraib scandal. The prisoner’s right to live was forfeited by being a legitimate target of bombings. He is now a case of what Giorgio Agamben calls ‘homo sacer’, the one who can be killed with impunity since, in the eyes of the law, his life no longer counts. We encounter here the emergency state logic gradually pervading life. Zizek is one of today’s most significant interdisciplinary thinkers. His work is a powerful, often explosive combination of psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts. His books include Did Someone Say Totalitarianism? (2001), Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002). He is currently writing a book on the war in Iraq. Back to top Anselm Franke is curator and critic (Berlin). Anselm Franke will present his Islands and Territories projects. Franke’s research results shows that our world is increasingly being fragmented into issue-related enclaves: Islands, Camps and Other States of Utopia, which all surpass the solid borders of the nation-state. He will present new and previously unpublished case studies, which further relate to the European Union. The exhibition Territories (2003) was curated by Franke in collaboration with Eyal Weizman, Rafi Segal and Stefano Boeri, and was initially shown at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2003), Witte de With (Rotterdam, 2003) and at the Malmö Konsthall (2004). Back to top Boris Buden is a writer and cultural theorist (Berlin). Boris Buden’s concepts of a culturally and politically divided Europe permeate his writings on the former Yugoslavia, Western Europe and the USA. An activist in the Yugoslavian peace movement, Buden founded the journal Arkzin (1993) and published the first Croatian new edition of the Communist Manifesto (1998). He participates as a scholar in The Post-Communist Condition, a research project led by media critic Boris Groys, Center for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe. Buden will relate his expertise to the shifting territories and demographics of post-communist societies, to what was formerly called the Eastern bloc. Back to top The Meta Haven: Sealand Identity Project is a Dutch design project developing a research-driven national identity for the world’s first ‘data haven’ and Europe’s smallest nation-state, the Principality of Sealand. Amsterdam based graphic designer Daniel van der Velden, initiator of the project, will present the design team’s research and proposals. Existing in the North Sea close to the United Kingdom since September 1967, Sealand is an internationally renowned legal test case regarding sovereignty, it is connected to information networks through its internet hosting services, existing on the borderline of traditional sovereignty, piracy and ‘Empire’. The Meta Haven project has developed new strategies for Sealand’s identity, exposing it as a complex web of instable signifiers. Design team: Tina Clausmeyer, Vinca Kruk, Adriaan Mellegers, Next Architects. Back to top The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an architectural office founded by Rem Koolhaas. At this conference Reinier De Graaf will present parts of OMA / AMO’s research of the €-conography project. During their branding process for the European Union, OMA / AMO unveiled an ‘iconographic deficit’ in the visual identity of the expanding EU, an impasse in the representation of a dynamic and emerging political entity. Parts of the €-conography project were shown as part of OMA / AMO’s recent exhibition Content (2004). The office most notably created a new European flag, showing a coloured barcode that refers to the national flags of the European nation states, replacing the twelve gold stars. Back to top Dieter Lesage is philosopher and lecturer at the RITS / Erasmushogeschool (Brussels). Dieter Lesage will speak about ‘Resistance, Identity, Europe’ and tackles issues such as: Should Europe be resisted? Or is Europe our main hope for any resistance at all? Should Europe be proclaimed ‘post-political’ even before it really gets political? Or should we rather consider the history of the European Union to date as its pre-political prelude? Should ‘identity’ be the banner of our resistance? Is there a European ‘iconographic deficit’, as Rem Koolhaas argues, or is the logo-centrism and branding by think tanks such as AMO something we would better do without? Finally, Sealand: why it fascinates us more than it should... Back to top Lieven De Cauter is philosopher and lecturer at the University of Leuven (K.U. Leuven) and at the RITS (Brussels). Lieven De Cauter’s introductory statement is partially based on his forthcoming book The Capsular Civilisation. On the City in the Age of Fear (2004). De Cauter is co-founder of the Brussels Tribunal 2004, People vs. Total War Incorporated, an organization that publicly questions the new imperial world order as it was launched by the Bush administration under the title ‘Project for the New American Century’. De Cauter will moderate the panel discussions. Back to top - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -