zero-point says ‘until next time’

this is our last show here:

MAPS / LOCATIONS

7th of 13 moon series

 

july 19th

experimental music showcase:
wormhole
push play
charts and maps
ogogo

word artist:
narinda heng

MORE TO COME…

take home a piece of the OPPOSITE OF WAR collective collage,

6:00 pm - midnight

$5 - $10 donation

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‘READING’ SLAVOJ ZIZEK

A GROUP READING SEMINAR

with MAXIMUS KIM

july 26th

“[O]ne should distinguish between ordinary escapism

and this dimension of Otherness, this magic moment

when the Absolute appears in all its fragility:

the prisoners have seen a ghost –

neither the resuscitated obscene ghost of the past,

not the spectral ghost of the capitalist present,

but the brief apparition of a future utopian Otherness

to which every authentic revolutionary stance should cling.”

- Slavoj Zizek¹

Since the beginning of the short twenty first century I have participated in group – reading seminars as the basis of my art and writing process. Reading for me can be not only important, but also primary to a person’s creative economy. As Rainer Ganahl put it, “Meeting people, reading together and discussion [can be] an art of temporary encounter, an act that can affect both our noetic and social activities.”²

The title of this introduction alludes to a similar artist-run reading seminar by Rainer Ganahl entitled Reading Karl Marx (1998-2001). Commissioned by Craig Martin as part of the Open House Projects, what initially struck me was the fact that the vast majority of people who participated in Reading Karl Marx seminars have never actually read anything by Marx. In staging ‘Reading’ Slavoj Zizek at Zero-point, I would like to foster a similar open-door atmosphere. Ideally, there should be no assumption that the participants have a prior knowledge of the subject. Neither are they asked to read the text in advance. Participants may not have the time, the patience, habit or perhaps the educational grooming to read often elitist, sometimes indecipherable academic texts. It has been my experience that in order to facilitate meaningful discussion through the study of Zizek, we would have to read together, sometimes phrase-by-phrase. Simultaneously, participants have urged other participants to cross out certain paragraphs. I have found myself comforting readers; don’t be afraid of simply absorbing the surface of Zizek. Depth and surface are often on identical sides of the Moebius strip. Divorcing, dividing, violently stripping the text from its original philosophical roots may be the most utopic act of all. At the end of the day ‘Reading’ Slavoj Zizek is not about reading Lacan. And it certainly isn’t about rereading Marx.

Why Zizek? Why not more established names such as Deleuze? Derrida? Or Foucault? With the help of group-reading seminars I came to understand that reading chapter-by-chapter, paragraph-by-paragraph, enabled a more precise discussion. However with this precision came a price: xenophobia. In London and Berlin, the group-reading emphasis on French intellectuals and French theory often encouraged the concealment and silence of non-french thinkers such as Zizek, bell hooks, and Cornel West. Moreover, much of French theory – deconstruction, for example – is notorious for its inability to engage popular culture – and hence, a wider audience. On the other hand, Zizek’s texts – often highlighting today’s headlines, movies and television programs – can serve as a barometer to comprehend our contemporary situation, without pretension or guilt. In the ‘Reading’ Slavoj Zizek seminars all contributions are welcomed and I try not to solicit or impose classical interpretations, as is often the case with continental pedagogical readings.

In the beginning of 2008 I worked with new groups of artists from University of Greenwich and Goldsmiths College. The art school approach has the advantage of reaching people whom in most cases have never broached reading this kind of literature. However I believe the true positive emancipatory potential of the experience can be reached at experimental spaces such as Zero-point. After all, Zero-point has a keen understanding of the relationship between dreams and reality. Themes such as Geobiotic and Dreamtime encourages participants to question the contemporary frame of reality, to question the fantasies that shape our global, consumer capitalist world. It is by re-imagining the social imaginary that the social can effectively change. In a way, as naïve as it sounds and contrary to many of the totalizing concepts of today’s social fabric that see people solely as unconscious and manipulated consumers, it is surprising how little it takes to stimulate change. Let’s read! Let’s re-imagine a new utopia for the short twenty-first century!!

 

$15 - $10 donation
the book will be included in the workshop for reading and discussion…
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