MOBILE ACADEMY MAK 2014 workshop

MOBILE ACADEMY MAK 2014 workshop in Terni, Italy
by TERNIFESTIVAL _international festival of contemporary creation
19 > 23 September 2014 

‘THE RAIN WILL NOT ERASE IT’_ A seminar and workshop series about habit and the event of performance

The Mobile Academy workshops in Terni will take place during  TerniFestival 2014 edition and will explore the Festival headline statement from  the bulgarian artist Malden Alexiev ‘The Rain Will Not Erase It’. The Academy devised and led by Professor Gary Peters and curated by Professor Steve Purcell over a 5 day period, will seek to explore how certain currents of contemporary artistic practice seek to create new habits of performance in an attempt to engage audiences with the artwork. ‘The Rain Will Not Erase It’ opens up questions about the politics and poetics of art practice, picking up themes around TIME / EVENT / SENSE / EXPERIENCE  and uses these constructs to think about the notions of habit in relation to art making practices – the habits of artists and those of spectators. Additionally the project will explore the relationships and differences  between habit and repetition asking the Academy participants the question ‘ What is or are your habits?’ as a way into exploring the nature of contemporary art making practice and the impact and possibilities these habits have on the artwork when the work enters the public domain.

Structure:
The Academy will have daily morning presentations and discussions led by Professor Gary Peters followed by opportunities to meet with and engage in conversation with artists presenting work in the Festival. One to one meetings and sub-group sessions will also be a feature of the project allowing participants to engage with the thematics of the Academy from different perspectives. Workshop space will be available for participants wishing to follow through on the morning discussions and share work in progress with other Academy participants. It is expected that Academy participants will collectively view work in the Festival and use this experience to feed into the following days session. The dynamics of the Academy will be dictated in large part by the current critical and creative thinking of the participants.

Gary Peters is Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at St John University of York. For many years (and still) a composer, musician, improvisor, Gary has a background in Sociology (LSE) and Cultural History (RCA). He has written widely on continental philosophy, aesthetics and pedagogy with a book Irony and Singularity: Aesthetic Education from Kant to Levinas published by Ashgate in 2005 and : The Philosophy of Improvisation, published by Chicago University Press in May 2009. He is currently working on a book for Chicago University press entitled: Yes, No, Don’t Know: Affirmation, Negation and Neutrality in Art and Philosophy. A central focus of this ongoing work is the task of devising a model of research that takes full and proper account of the affirmative nature of art practice and the knowing unknowingness (what Maurice Blanchot describes as the ‘neutral’) revealed therein.

Steve Purcell is Professor of International Cultural Developments at St John University of York 
He has extensive experience of Higher Education development and project management within the UK HEI sector and over the past 5 years extended this to international partnership and development activity. This experience is predominantly within the Arts and Humanities subject domains. He continues to engage with a range of international professional arts and cultural related organizations in various capacities including coaching and mentoring, curriculum design, project development and management, quality assurance, evaluation and enhancement. He has recently become a Senior Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.