[oldboys] CONF: Welcome to The Revolution

[miss.gunst@gmx.net]

*sorry for cross-posting*

Welcome to the Revolution*
International Symposium November 9th to 11th, 2001

Institute for Theory of Design and Art (ith) at the 'Hochschule für
Gestaltung und Kunst
Zürich' (HGKZ)

How are subjectivity, collectivity and their gender-specific
manifestations formed against the background of
non-linear work and lifetime conditions? What impact does this tendency
of society as a whole have on political
culture and on current cultural practice?

Ulrich Bröckling (Freiburg/D)
Karen Lisa Goldschmidt-Salamon (Kopenhagen/DK)
Michael Hardt (New York/USA)
Bettina Heintz (Mainz/D)
Tom Holert (Köln/D)
Verena Kuni (Frankfurt a. M./D)
Angela McRobbie (London/UK)
Faith Wilding (New York/USA)

Entrance fee: 2-day-pass SFR 50,-
Single day SFR 30,-

@ Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst HGKZ, Ausstellungsstrasse 60, 8031
Zürich,
Main Building, Lecture Hall, 2nd floor
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the events of 1968 the view of society as a universal whole has
changed. The social movements in the
West as well as the emancipatory movements in the countries of the
global south have secured an
understanding of the particularity, difference and specificity of social
issues, which has become part of the
thinking of and about postmodernity. These developments on the
intellectual and socio-political terrain are
mirrored in the dynamics of a post-industrial society, in which the
consolidation of the service industries on the
one hand and of new communication technologies on the other hand has
been furthered since the mid-1970s.
The level of production has continuously been replaced by management and
marketing of consumer goods.

Management literature advertises company restructuring with titles like
"Welcome to the Revolution". New
organizational structures like "Fractal Organization", "Lean Production"
and "Chaos Management" have
already found real application in companies. Rigid hierarchies are being
dissolved and replaced by team work,
self-dynamics, and social competence. Comparisons are made with guerilla
strategies and the Italian
'autonomia', who in the late 1970s developed radical democratic
organizational paradigms in a dialogue with
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. There are correlations between the
counter-culture of the 60s/70s and their
'groupuscles' on the one hand and group work in new company strategies
on the other hand. The incorporation
of former dissident practices and subject positions in favor of making
institutions and economically motivated
organizational processes more efficient is to be located within the
context of neo-liberal politics, which declare
the regulating effect of the market as well as its agent, the
entrepreneur/manager, to be the most effective
paradigm and sell this as an emancipatory project.

Business and marketing strategies have become essential players in terms
of the formation of our cultural
environment, the creation of life styles and the definition of how a
society describes, feels and sees itself. At the
same time the consolidation of the production of consumer goods has lead
to an 'asthetization of everyday life'
in the fields of the branding and marketing industries. Also in
Switzerland, particularly in Zurich, a booming
'creative industry' has taken shape and formed a new generation of
free-lancers, whose self-understanding is
similar to that of artists and produces new hybrid forms of cultural
practice. The life of a cultural worker, artist,
author, journalist becomes the model for a flexible and creative
organization of life.

The former dichotomy between work and leisure, formal and informal, is
beginning to become more diverse
and aesthetic in areas other than the image industry as well. With the
concept of flexible working biographies of
the so-called life-entrepreneur it is becoming increasingly difficult to
pin down when, how and why we call
something work or non-work. Also in the new service-oriented work
relations work and lifetime overlap or even
become wholly identical. This transformation not only produces new
spaces of collective experience and hybrid
cultural forms but in its positive assumptions also opens up
possibilities for new subject positions, which could
be understood as enemies to traditional gender dichotomies on the one
hand, but also as neo-liberal
technologies (of the self) in the sense of Foucault on the other hand.

Concept/Realisation:  Marion von Osten and Sibylle Omlin
Institute for Theory of Art and Design (ith), Zurich

Organisation/Information: Isabel Kempinski, Institute for Theory of Art
and Design (ith), Postfach, 8031
Zürich, telephone 0041-1-4462652, email: info@ith-z.ch




FRIDAY, 9.11. 2001

14.00
Transformation of the concept of "labor" / Technologies of the Self
 Introduction by  Marion von Osten and Sibylle Omlin


14.30-15.15
KAREN LISA GOLDSCHMIDT SALAMON Kopenhagen/DK

Spiritual Transformation at Work. Contemporary Social Networks and
Ideological Discourses of Management Consultants

Business professionals have become culturally sensitive and explicitly
concerned with integrating so-called
cultural values in management practice. Their ideal is one of a
'corporate religion' and opens a heterogeneous
ideological form (involving a broad range of New Age spiritual practices
and religious and philosophical
traditions). The Spiritual Transformation of Work can thus be viewed as
a multi-local and transnational,
polycentric ideological movement, organized in the form of communicative
networks that address central
issues of neo-liberal workplace organization and strongly influence
corporate management today.

Karen Lisa Goldschmidt-Salamon (Kopenhagen/DK), social anthropologist.
She has published among others in "Cultural Capitalism:
Politics after New Labour" (London: Lawrence & Wishart).  She teaches at
the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy
at the Kopenhagen Business School.


15.15 discussion and pause


16.30 - 17.15
DR. ULRICH BRÖCKLING Freiburg/Germany

Intrapreneurship. Excursions into the world of quality- and
self-management

Manuals and seminars about personality coaching not only convey
tehcniques of efficient time planning, work
organization or stress coping, but also design a comprehensive model of
neo-liberal subjectivity: the model of
the entrepreneurial self. The manuals for the successful marketing of
'Ego&Co' make use not least of the fund
of feminist and leftist critique. Paradoxical hybrid forms appear as the
vanishing points of self-modelling: the
team-oriented single combattant, the empathetic maximiser of benefits,
the self-portrayer with a view of the
whole, or the customer-oriented slick guy with a highly idiosyncratic
profile.

Dr. Ulrich Bröckling (Freiburg/Germany), reseacrh field:  sociology with
a focus on cultural sociology, history and social
technologies. Co-editor of "Gouvernementalität der Gegenwart. Studien
zur Ökonomisierung des Sozialen" (Frankfurt a. M.,
Suhrkamp Verlag). Research assistant at the Sonderforschungsbereich
"Literatur und Anthropologie" at the University of Konstanz.


17.15 discussion and pause

18.00 - 18.45
TOM HOLERT Köln/Germany

Requirement-Intelligences

In digitized "work environments" profiles of competence emerge which are
informed by ideals of coginitive and
social competence but also by the battle cries of neo-liberalism and
social darwinism. Against the background
of a dichotomy of the official "soft skills"-ideology and inofficial
brutalization/naturalization the question is
pursued how a) the new categories of "gender" and "intelligence" are
being inscribed into the new "work
environments" and how b) the representation of these categories in the
context of "profession&work" has
changed in the course of the last decades with the computerization of
the work place.

Dr. Tom Holert (Köln/Germany), freelance cultural theorist and
journalist in Köln. From 1992-1995 editor at 'Texte zur Kunst', from
1996-1999 co-editor of 'Spex', from 1997-1999 Professor for Theory of
Culture and Media at Merz Akademie, Stuttgart. April 2000
foundation of the Institute for Studies in Visual Culture (isvc) with
Mark  Terkessidis. Book publications: Künstlerwissen (1998),
Mainstream der Minderheiten. Pop in der Kontrollgesellschaft (Editor,
with Mark Terkessidis, 1996), Imagineering. Visuelle Kultur
und Politik der Sichtbarkeit (Editor, 2000). In preparation: Books on
the "visual formations" of today and on categories of intelligence
in popular culture.

18.45 discussion and pause


19.30-20.15
FAITH WILDING New York/USA

Collective Maintenance a lecture/performance

In recent decades, the mass deployment of electronic technology in
offices and workplaces has profoundly
changed the structure of work. The relationship of home and work life in
ways which are having particularly
disturbing effects on women worldwide. Once again many women are
confined to the private sphere of the
home where they perform double maintenance labor, simultaneously
maintaining the family and the global
consumer economy. I will present a model of cyberfeminist collective
work and discuss the problematic
maintenance of collectivity. My example will be the cyberfeminist
collective subRosa, an activist cultural
production group deeply committed to critical performance, creative
subversion of authoritarian institutions, and
radical restructuring of social relations.

Faith Wilding (New York/USA), artist and cultural theorist, mixes her
biography with that of subRosa. SubRosa is a (cyber)feminist
collective which studies new information- and bio-technologies as well
as their effects on female body-, life-, and work-relations in a
combination of art, activism and politics. In her lecture/performances
Faith Wilding draws a comparison between the Feminist
Maintenance Performance developed in the 1970s by the Woman's Action
Coalition and the political conditions of cyberfeminism.



SATURDAY, 10.11.2001

14.00
Immaterial Work I. Cultural Perspectives: Introduction by Sibylle Omlin


14.30 - 15.15
VERENA KUNI Frankfurt a.M./Germany

"Pre-Register Now!"
J'est un JobCreator.Bot
On Cultural Part Time Worker Self-Management under Net_Conditions
In future, will cultural workers be required only as friendly
hosts/hostesses, cleaning ladies of data spaces and graveyard gardeners
in the holiday parks of the information society? Are self-organization
and the work on, in and with collaborative structures only warming up
exercises in trainee
centers conditioning us for mc-jobs the sweatshops of culture industry?
Any alternative options?
(This text was automatically generated by an abstract generator bot)

Verena Kuni (Frankfurt a.M./Germany), art historian and critic with a
focus on gender studies in the the fields of art and media
studies and on theory and aesthetics of electronic art. Member of the
'old boys network' and the 'webgrrls'; co-founder of the 'filiale
zeitgenössische kunst gender vermittlung'. Research assistant in art
history at the University of Trier and coordinator of
interdisciplinary gender studies.



15.15 discussion and pause

16.00 - 16.45
PROF. ANGELA MCROBBIE London/UK

Everyone Is Creative... Artists as Pioneers of the New Economy?

The lecture considers UK policy on creativity and employment. It also
explores the full impact of corporate
interests in hitherto state funded arts and argues this contributes not
to the expansion of creativity but to the
extinguishing of the 'indies'. The lecture concludes by asking how
cultural workers can organise as 'new
labour'?

Prof. Angela McRobbie (London/UK), research field: Culture, Gender and
Media Studies. She has published among others
"Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen" (1991),
"Postmodernism and Popular Culture" (1994),"British fashion
design: rag trade or image industry?"(1998), "In the culture society:
art, fashion, and popular music" (London: Routledge 1999).
Editor of "Zoot Suits and Second Hand Dresses" (1989). She teaches at
the Department for Media and Communication, Goldsmith
College London.


16.45 discussion and pause

17.30
Immaterial Work II. New Gender-Perspectives: Introduction by Marion von
Osten

18.00 - 18.45
MICHAEL HARDT New York/USA

Affective Labor

The concept of biopower has been important in discussing the progressive
indistinction between production
and reproduction, the indefinite, expansive nature of the length of the
working day. The concept of affective
labor has also helped recognize the corporeal nature of these new,
immaterial productive forms. This new
paradigm of laboring activity constitutes not only a new regime of
control but also contains the possibility of
liberation: The powers of invention, of mixture, hybridization, and
metamorphosis of immaterial labor present a
new liberatory potential for the autonomous construction of
subjectivity.

Prof. Michael Hardt (New York/USA), romance languages and literature. He
has published among others with Antonio Negri
"Empire" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press) and "Die Arbeit des
Dionysos" (Berlin: ID Verlag). He teaches at Duke University,
Durham, New York.



18.45 discussion and pause


19.30 - 20.15
PROF. DR. BETTINA HEINTZ Mainz/Germany

The Power of the Global: Women's Rights in the context of world society

Untouched by the public discourse on globalisation gender research in
the social sciences is still looking for the
causes of the continuing disadvantage to women within national states.
Today, the change and the form of
gender relations cannot be explained without reference to the level of
world society. When globalisation is the
subject matter, the diagnosis is mostly one of loss. But specifically in
the field of women's rights and national
gender cultures the 'process of globalisation' has not only negative
consequences.

Prof. Dr. Bettina Heintz (Mainz/Germany), sociologist. She has published
among others: "Listen der Ohnmacht. Zur
Sozialgeschichte weiblicher Widerstandsformen" (Syndikat 1981, 3rd ed.
2000, with Claudia Honegger), "Die Herrschaft der Regel.
Zur Grundlagengeschichte des Computers" (1993) and "Mit dem Auge denken.
Strategien der Sichtbarmachung in
wissenschaftlichen und virtuellen Welten" (Berlin: Springer Verlag 2001,
with Jörg Huber). Professor for sociology at the Johannes
Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.



20.30 - 21.45
Final discussion
Moderation: Eva Nadai, Zürich


SUNDAY, 11.11.2001
Colloquium

With the speakers and students of HGKZ
By registration only (limited number of participants)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Welcome to the Revolution" is a production of the Institute for Theory
of Art and Design (ith), Zurich, in
cooperation with the Theoriepool (STH) of the Hochschule für Gestaltung
und Kunst, Zurich (HGKZ). The event
is sponsored by the British Council/Switzerland and Migros
Kulturprozent.


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