Zoom Link: https://NewSchool.zoom.us/j/91202520678
This event invites students to research, reenact, and reimagine alternative and traditional educational formats. Participants will closely study and create an archive of precedents, deconstructing and distilling components, values, practices, and competencies. We will also explore and carefully rethink formats such as conferences, lectures, symposia, and workshops, experimenting with alternative modes through which we might activate these platforms.
Students will creatively respond to their research through experience-based inquiry, developing and practicing educational modalities through performance as embodied participants. We will be guided through theater exercises, experiment with pedagogical formats, participate in and facilitate workshops, and will consider the notion of performance through a variety of theoretical and practice-based lenses. We will also engage work from critical pedagogical traditions, contemporary art, and performative enactments in speculative design to explore a series of questions:
This event is a companion to the studio event: Embodying History, Provotyping Futures. Although in dialogue with this earlier studio event, it is not a prerequisite and this event is open to all. Also, note that this event runs longer than many other events. This will allow us to go deeper but it will also require a greater commitment.
Thematic Areas
Alternative Education
Labor and Local Economies
Data, Value and Signs of Knowledge
Organizing for Action
Facilitators and Collaborators
Barbara Adams
Sam Haddix
Anna Lathrop
**1. Monday, October **5, 9:00am - 11:00am ET
Kickoff!
To prepare for our first meeting:
READ: Victor Turner and Edith Turner (Summer 1982) “Performing Ethnography.” The Drama Review: TDR, 26( 2): 33-50.
Michael Allen, “Design Schools: Who Are We For?” Hyperallergic, August 5, 2020.
BROWSE: Miriam Simun, Training Transhumanism: I WANT TO BECOME A CEPHALOPOD.
WATCH: "Realness" and "Executive Realness" excerpts from Paris is Burning (5 minutes).
WRITE: Write a love letter or break up letter to an educational experience, program, space, etc. Be prepared to read these in our first meeting. (See Smart Design’s use of this method here and here.) If you like, you can share your letters here:
Notes related to our first meeting
Recording from Session #1: Kickoff
2. Wednesday, October 7, 10:00am - 11:30am ET
In-class activity. "What if _______ designed our _______ ?" Mural board.
No reading or assignment for today, but start working on your videos for next Monday and take some time to browse the resources in the list below. Also start building our library of precedents here.
Recording from Session #2: What if __ designed our __ ?
3. Monday, October 12, 10:00am - 12:00pm ET
The Uninformed Expert
Record a 2-4 minute video where you teach us something. Choose something that you know nothing about. Do no research. Take on the persona of an expert, in spite of your actual ignorance. Feel free to use any necessary props, costumes, or sets in convincing us of your expertise. Feel free to work individually or in groups. Be prepared to share on Monday, October 12. Upload here prior to our meeting:
The Uninformed Expert (uploads)
In relation to the above assignment, see Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. In particular, think about his understanding of “impression management.” You might also want to look at Uta Hagen's "Nine Questions." (Links to both in the list of resources below.)
Recording from Session #3: The Uninformed Expert
4. Wednesday, October 14, 10:00am - noon ET
**Session led by Pablo Helguera.
The lecture as we know it has been declared dead. A new type of lecture, the metalecture or lecture 2.0 must take its place...The easy definition of a performance lecture is that it is a live presentation imparted by an artist who takes advantage of his or her artistic license and of the conventions of academic pedagogy to create a work that straddles fiction and reality...yet...the genre is in a constant process of self-definition, sometimes delving into stand-up comedy, poetic presentations, recitals, speeches etc. (Pablo Helguera, Theatrum Anatomicum)
BROWSE/WATCH:
The Center for Experimental Lectures: http://experimentallectures.org/
John Cage (1958) Lecture on Nothing.
Rabih Mroué (2014) The Pixelated Revolution, Berlin Documentary Forum 2.
Andrea Fraser (2003) Official Welcome, Hamburg Kunstverein; and Museum Highlights (1989) excerpt.
Xavier Le Roy (1999) Product of Circumstances, PS1, October 17, 2014.
Hennessy Youngman (2012) Art Thoughtz, The Studio Visit.
Also see Pablo's Combinatory Play, an episode of Art Assignment on PBS, and videos of his performance lectures.
Shared by Pablo: Donald Bligh (1998) *What's the Use of Lectures? (*excerpt)
Recording of Session #4: Pablo Helguera