Dec 14: Global Capital, Post-Medial Art 4 – Rod Dickinson

In the forth and final part of the lecture series Global Capital, Post-Medial Art during 2013, artist and lecturer Rod Dickinson (GB) will give a talk entitled Performance Machines.

Future projects and this talk will explore the legacy of post war information systems that inscribe the human subject into situations and institutions that manage and measure performance, choice and productivity.

www.roddickinson.net

Global Capital, Post-Medial Art
The lecture series Global Capital, Post-Medial Art investigates the relation between contemporary art forms, mainly installation and performance art, and the development of capitalism towards an increasingly de-regulated market. Implicit in the concept of 'contemporary art' is the idea that the borders between the traditional art forms – painting and sculpture mainly – are, if not completely abolished, at least considered unimportant. But contemporary art has not for that reason completely got rid of specific media. Rather it is based on so called post-media or in-between art forms such as installation and performance art. These in-between art forms must be understood in relation to the development towards a generic concept of art since the 1960s and a capitalist market which knows no national borders.

How did art forms such as performance and dance reflect on their status as commodities and capitalist labour when they emerged? To what extent do artists working in these media today continue to reflect upon this? The lecture series Global Capital, Post-Medial Art aims, on the one hand, to analyse the emergence of these traditionally experimental art forms and, on the other hand, to investigate their status and political potential within the framework of global capitalism today.

The lecture series Global Capital, Post-Medial Art is organised by writer and researcher Josefine Wikström on the commission of Weld.

———-

Rod Dickinson
is a visual artist and lecturer in Media, Culture and Practice at University of West England in Bristol. His work have explored the way in which our behaviour interacts with media feedback systems and social contexts. In 2002 he restaged Stanley Milgram’s infamous ‘Obedience to Authority’ experiment. He has collaborated with writers Tom McCarthy (author of ‘C’ and “Remainder’) and Steve Rushton (Piet Zwart Institute) and media theorist Richard Barbrook (Westminster University). Recent exhibitions/ performances include: Hayward Gallery, London, 2012; DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, 2011; The Museum of Yugoslav History, 52nd Oktober Salon in Belgrade, 2011; The Showroom, London, 2011.

Josefine Wikström
is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University. In her thesis, supervised by professor Peter Osborne, she investigates the category performance within contemporary art and from the standpoint of concepts of labour and action in Marx, Sartre and other thinkers. Josefine Wikström has taught at Central St Martins in London and at Konstfack in Stockholm. She is currently working as a visiting tutor at Goldsmiths University in London. She also works as an art critic and writer and has written for Afterall, MAY Revue and for international peer-reviewed journals such as Philosophy and Photography and Performance Research Journal.