Feminismus – Staatsaufgabe? Wirtschaftsfaktor? Revolte?
Feminism – government's mission? economic factor? insurrection?
Who are the actors in feminist politics today? Did feminism turn into a field of official politics, defined by president's election campaigns, federal administration, global economic strategising, and academic career management? Does it make any sense at all to combine the terms feminism and insurrection today? And secondly: How does feminist practice deal with the fact that gender relations are no longer understood as structured exclusively by the category of gender, but by various processes of social differentiation like education, post/colonialism, economic globalization, racism, heteronormativity? The idea of a simple binary of male versus female is widely challenged. How is this insight taken up by feminisms? Is queer feminism a promising answer to these questions?
Freitag 08. August 2008, 17.00 - 20.30 Uhr,
im Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstr. 33, Berlin-Ostbahnhof
mit
María do Mar Castro Varela (Berlin)
Marina Grzinic (Ljubliana, Slovenia)
Rosa Reitsamer (Vienna, Austria)
Tiina Rosenberg (Lund, Sweden)
Chris Straayer (New York, U.S.)
Tim Stüttgen aka Timi Mei Monigatti (Berlin)
abstracts
María do Mar Castro Varela (Berlin)
„Learning to Swim in the Main-Stream..."
According to Wikipedia Mainstream is „the common current of thought of the majority. (…) something that is ordinary or usual; something that is familiar to the masses; something that is available to the general public; something that has ties to corporate or commercial entities.“ In my presentation I will unpack the idea of „Gender Mainstreaming“ and „Mainstream Feminism” and search for possibilities to swim against the current flow. This includes some notes on the concept of the“masses” as well as the “ordinary and usual”. Can feminism be uncommon and extraordinary and still make sense to the „masses”? Does feminism have to be sensible? Or: How can we learn to swim in the main stream without being mainstreamed and without drowning?
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Marina Grzinic (Ljubliana, Slovenia)
„New Feminism and the Political Act“
„New feminism is politics!" is the subtitle of the book New Feminism: worlds of feminism, queer and networking conditions, edited by me and Rosa Reitsamer. The book is conceptualized with a clear idea not to be another sign of the globalized capitalist world that is capable today to present together unthinkable positions and statements coming from theory and practice of feminism. On the contrary, the book is conceptualized with the idea to challenge this „multi-culti“ palette of variations on the „same“ topic, that are now coming from different parts of the world. It presents a new conceptual and paradigmatic act that implies a new possible politics for the movement. An act is a paradoxical short circuit between words and activity. An act is always performed through enunciation and it not only changes the subject but as well the Other to whom it was addressed.
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Rosa Reitsamer (Vienna, Austria)
„How to Become a Successful Feminist-Queer DJ in the Music Capital of the World“
What are the feminist-queer networking strategies in Vienesse cluab culture? Collective strategies like founding and establishing virtual and local networks enable the exchange of knowledge and experiences. Projects are realized on this basis. In how far do these networking strategies reproduce dominant norms and values of „the“ music scene? In which respect do ruptures and challenges appear?
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Tiina Rosenberg (Lund, Schweden)
„Against Normal Feminism: The Queer Revenge in Swedish Contemporary Performance“
Sweden is seen internationally as wonderland of equality. There still is a strong feminist tradition; though since 2005 one notices a decline. Nevertheless, feminist movements are alive and activley disrupting public normalcies. The oresentation will give examples of activist feminist performance art, discuss its queer tendencies as well as its connections to anti-racist and feminist class struggle.
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Chris Straayer (New York)
„Flouncing About in the Hetero-Sexual Gaze:
Transsexual Women, Plastic Surgery, and the Dis-play of Femininity”Sexism and homophobia inhabit the heterosexual gaze as the oppositely directed vectors of aggression and repulsion toward women and queers, respectively. In the documentary Alexis Arquette: She’s My Brother (Matthew Barbato, 2007), they are answered by a transsexual woman’s complicated exhibition, a nexus that unhinges assumptions about feminism and plastic surgery, sexual proof and access.
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Tim Stüttgen aka Timi Mei Monigatti (Berlin)
"Queerfeminist Desires: Notes on the Precarious Intellect"
(MiniPerformance Lecture)
for more details and biographical notes: www.femmes-breaks.com
GeoCultures: Circuits of Art and Globalisation
Talk by Irit Rogoff (Professor for Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London)
preceded by a performance by Ana Hoffner
Monday Nov 24, 2008, 19:30
ICI/Kulturlabor, Christinenstr. 18/19 (Pfefferberg Haus 8).
Irit Rogoff: Geo Cultures: Circuits of Art and Globalisation
GeoCultures is an attempt to understand how a large range of current cultural practices - including fine arts, architecture and spatial practices, internet and screened media, curating and organising, sonic culture, performance, and theory - are producing new and unexpected realities within circuits of globalisation. These departures are not simply the production of new subject matter or forms, but the production of new artistic arenas which enact contemporary political conjunctions.
The conditions of recent phases of globalisation have produced a newly strained relationship between stabilities and circulations. The stabilities of citizenship and emplacement and their related access to rights, protections, inclusions, situated knowledges and legitimated cultural production, are countered by an ever increasing array of categories of those who cannot automatically assume such accesses; immigrants, migrant laborers, refugees, asylum seekers, diasporic communities not to mention the numerous bodies on the move within the circuits of mobile capital, outsourcing and franchising or those who are on the move for the gratification of various desires such as education or tourism. Such a level of bodily circulation has impacted on the very possibility of arguing 'situated knowledge' simply as a series of direct relations between subjects, places and epistemologies.Performance
Ana Hoffner: Panic: Perverted
The performance Panic: Perverted is a reenactment of Valie Export’s Aktionshose: Genitalpanik (1969). It articulates the perspectives of Expanded Cinema and Body Performanc for the present. By making use of a complex media installation the performance explores possibilities of feminist counter positioning in times of global migration.
Bios:
Irit Rogoff is a theorist, curator and organizer who writes at the intersections of the critical, the political and contemporary arts practices. Rogoff is Professor of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths College London University, a department she founded in 2002. Her work across a series of new 'think tank' PH.D programs at Goldsmiths (Research Architecture, Curatorial/Knowledge) is focusing on the possibility of locating, moving and exchanging knowledges across professional practices, self generated forums, academic institutions and individual enthusiasms. Recent publications include: "A.C.A.D.E.M.Y" (2006) "Unbounded - Limits Possibilities" (2008) and forthcoming "Looking Away - Participating Singularities, Ontological Communities" (2009). Curatorial work includes; De-Regulation with the work of Kutlug Ataman (2005-8) ACADEMY (2006), "Summit - Non Aligned Initiatives in education Culture" (2007).
Ana Hoffner is performance artist and works in and on queer and migrant politics. Recent exhibitions and performances: Oktobarski Salon (Beograd 2008), Hack.Fem.East (Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin 2008), Rdece Zore (International Queer and Feminist Festival, Galerie Alkatraz, Ljubljana 2008), “The Making Of...” (Ladyfest Berlin 2007), “Quand les lesbiennes se font du cinema” (Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival Paris, 2006), “Isztvana: debutt” (Kontekst Gallery, Belgrade 2006).
In co-operation with the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI Berlin) and
the Institute for Latin American Studies, Free University Berlin (Prof Dr. Anja Bandau)