Course detail

Radical imagination

FaVU-RAIMAcad. year: 2020/2021

The course titled Radical Imagination is dedicated to exploring how different artists today approach the politics of imagination and the issues of what radical or militant imagination is.
Within the lecture series imagination will be understood not as a cognitive capacity of an individual, but rather a sociological phenomenon. Our approach will be based on the conviction that most social institutions, such as nation states, marriage or others, are from a great part imaginary. As individuals and society, we must carry them out in our everyday lives and fill them with symbolism in order to lend them meaning. Radical imagination could be perceived then as some kind of substance from which all these institutions—but also society and individuals—form and acquire shape. At the same time, radical imagination has the potential to negate, distort, and re-create them.

We will ask how art could move from drawing attention to the power play of this system to actively engaging in the pursuit of new, more equal social order? How does art today approach urgent social issues? Based on analysing specific art projects, lectures will articulate working theses on what we can nowadays consider "radical strategies" in art; what kind of art is considered to be "useful" and in which direction its theory and practice are moving; and also how the "militant imagination" of art is intertwined with particular political practice in alliance with resistance and solidarity.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Learning outcomes of the course unit

The aim of the course is to broaden the understanding of contemporary art, its social role as well as the role of artists. During the course students should acquire knowledge about how art today joins various social or political movements in the struggle for more equal social order and how it approaches questions of ethics in terms of representation.

Prerequisites

Advanced knowledge of English language; keen interest in contemporary art practice.

Co-requisites

Not applicable.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Critical readings accompanied by presentation of audio-visual material and lectures.

Assesment methods and criteria linked to learning outcomes

Credits awarded based on the attendance and the level of participation in the seminar and a proposition of an art project employing the idea of “radical imagination“ .

Course curriculum

The series of lectures will unfold from the projects of following artists:
1. Núria Güell and Levi Orta (Arte Político Degenerado)
Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima (Ten Thousand Cents)
2. Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares (Forest Law)
3. Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle (SexEcology )
4. Forensic Architecture (The Grenfell Tower Fire, Killing in Umm al-Hiran)
Lorenzo Pezzani aand Charles Heller (Forensic Oceanography )
5. Tabita Rezaire (Exotic Trade)
Annalee Davis (Unearthing Voices)
6. Karrabing Film Collective (Salt)
7. Waguih El laqany (Cinema Everywhere)
Ruangrupa (The Gerobak Bioskop)
8. Nida Sinnokrot and Sahar Qawasmi (Sakiya – Art/Science/Agriculture)
9. Minia Bibiany (Doukou)
10. Brigada Puerta de Tierra
11. The Living and the Dead Ensemble (Ouvertures Monsieur Toussaint)
12. Contrafilé and Campus in Camps (Mujawara/The Tree School)
Sandi Hilal (Al Madhafah /The Living Room)

Work placements

Not applicable.

Aims

Understanding of social and political role of contemporary art and artists.

Specification of controlled education, way of implementation and compensation for absences

Attendance compulsory (75%).

Recommended optional programme components

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

BOTTICI CH. Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014
COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE.The Combahee River Collective Statement. In: SMITH, B. (ed.) Home Girls, A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Inc., 1983
DEMOS, T.J. Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017
HAIVEN, M. Art After Money Money After Art. London: Pluto Press, 2018
MOHANTY, C.T. Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience. In: Destabilizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist Debates. CA : Stanford University Press, 1992
Povinná:
QUÍJANO, A. Coloniality and Modernity. In: Cultural Studies Vol. 21
TAYLOR, C. The Politics of Recognition. Dostupné na internete: http://elplandehiram.org/documentos/JoustingNYC/Politics_of_Recognition.pdf
TUCK,E. – MORRILL, A. – SUPER FUTURES HAUNT QOLLECTIVE. Before Dispossession, or Surviving It. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies Vol. 12, No. 1, 2016
WRIGHT MILLS, C. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000
WRIGHT, S. Toward a Lexicon of Usership. The Hague: Deltahage, 2013
ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION: The Arts, the Sciences, the Originary Peoples and the Basements of the World. Dostupné na internete: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2016/03/04/the-arts-the-sciences-the-originary-peoples-and-the-basements-of-the-world/

Type of course unit

Lecture

13 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.

Seminar

13 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.

VUT

Faculties

University Institutes

Parts

Radical imagination

Type of course unit