Exploring overlooked urban zones, state borders and extra-territorial sites throughout the world, contributors probe contemporary perspectives on power and its evasions
Slought Foundation and the Department of Architecture, PennDesign, are pleased to announce the Evasions of Power Conference, a series of roundtable discussions, debates, and interventions exploring the relations between literature, architecture, and geo-politics. The photo-documentation on this webpage of military forces from Montenegro transporting and installing a shrine on the Serbian border exemplifies this intersection.
The proceedings will take place in Philadelphia from March 30-31, 2007 and have been jointly organized by Slought Foundation and the Department of Architecture, PennDesign, in conjunction with the Centre for Architecture Research, Goldsmiths College, London, the Department of Art History, University of Pennsylvania, the Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, and Eastern State Penitentiary historic site and museum, Philadelphia.
CONFERENCE
Evasions of Architecture
Session 1: Introduction
Introductions by Detlef Mertins, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss, Aaron Levy and Katherine Carl.
Session 2: Territories
10-15 minute presentations by Keller Easterling, Sanjay Krishnan, Laura Kurgan, Eyal Weizman, and Manuel Hertz. Discussion moderated by Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss.
Session 3: Institutions
10-15 minute presentations by Anselm Franke, Sarah Herda, David Kazanjian, Thomas Keenan, and John Palmesino. Discussion moderated by Katherine Carl.
Session 4: Interventions
10-15 minute presentations by Carlos Basualdo and Jeanne van Heeswijk, Lindsay Bremner, Deborah Gans, David Ruy, Nebojsa Seric Shoba, Teddy Cruz and Shumon Basar. Discussion moderated by Helene Furjan.
CONVERSATION
Samuel Weber on Networks, Netwar and Narratives
This event will take place at Slought on Friday, March 30, 2007 from 6:30-8:30pm, and will begin with remarks by Peter Krapp on "Networks," Eduardo Cadava on "Netwar," and Catherine Liu on "Narratives." A public conversation with Samuel Weber, moderated by Jean-Michel Rabaté, will take place immediately after. In the wake of September 11 and the "war on terror," this wide-ranging discussion expands upon Samuel Weber's recent study of "targeting" and its relation to thinking, self-definition, war, violence, technology, media, nationalism, and sovereignty.
The evening is predicated on close readings of Weber's recent essay "Target of Opportunity: Networks, Netwar, and Narratives" (Grey Room, Volume 15, Spring 2004, MIT Press), as well as John Arquilla's and David Ronfeldt's "Networks and Newars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Rand Corporation, 1993-2003).
TOUR
From Pennsylvania Panopticon to Experiential Site: Eastern State Penitentiary
This special tour of Eastern State Penitentiary, led by Program Director Sean Kelley, will take place on Saturday, March 31, 2007 from 10am-12:00pm. Kelley will provide an overview of the historic penitentiary and some of the ongoing transformations that are being made to this site in the name of preservation and education, in relation to larger developments in the field of geopolitics today. Download "The Ruin Isn't What it Used to Be," an introductory guide to Eastern State Penitentiary by Sean Kelley.
ROUNDTABLE
Tracking Tactics and Rhetorics: On the Vicissitudes of the Panoptic from Surveillance to Dataveillance
This public seminar and roundtable with Thomas Y. Levin of Princeton University, with Goldsmiths Centre for Architecture Research members acting as respondents, will take place at Slought Foundation on Saturday, March 31, 2007.
This session is predicated on close readings of Thomas Y. Levin's recent essay "Rhetoric of the Temporal Index: Surveillant Narration and the Cinema of "Real Time," in Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne & Peter Weibel, Eds., Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002).
Learn about associated programs