Counter Culture Now Symposium 2018

Participants among other are Bernardo Zanotta (filmmaker, visual artist, Amsterdam), Ross Bradshaw (founder and owner of RADICAL bookshop Five Leaves in Nottingham, UK/ cofounder of London Radical Book Fair, London), Theo Ploeg (publicist, teachter Maastricht Academy of Media Design & Technology, MAMDT, and iARTS). Manuel Luis Martinez (Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, University of Texas-Dallas), Natascha Hagenbeek (artist, a.o. influenced by Whole Earth Catalog).

Program

12.00 – 12.15 – walk-in

12.15 – 12.20 – welcome by Lennard Dost and Ytje Veenstra

12.20 – 13.10 – talk by Theo Ploeg

13.10 – 14.00 – talk by Ross Bradshaw

14.00 – 14.15 – short break

14.15 – 15.05 – talk by Natascha Hagenbeek

15.05 – 15.55 – talk by Manuel Luis Martinez

15.55 – 16.10 – short break

16.10 – 17.00 – talk by Bernardo Zanotta

17.00 – 17.50 – talk by Jim Campers

17.50 – 18.30 – food and drinks

 

Information

Talk by Theo Ploeg

The Slow Cancellation of the Future: Vapor Wave as Antipraxis

Counterculture isn’t what it used to be. Rapid and accelerating changes in technology and society leave people puzzled with how to deal with the vanishing status quo. The only solution seems to be to pick sides and become more extreme. There is another one: ignore the present and embrace uncertainty. The cultural phenomena vaporwave, spawn from contemporary internet culture, shows the way. Vaporwave is like a black hole: no past, no future, only now.

Theo Ploeg (Heerlen) is an unconditional accelerationist and a media/design sociologist, he investigates the art of living in an accelerating world at Studio Hyperspace, writes for FRNKFRT and teaches at the Maastricht Academy of Media Design and Technology and iARTS.

Talk by Ross Bradshaw

Radical bookselling in Britain

From the days when a radical bookseller had to carry a pistol, through to a radical bookshop becoming independent bookshop of the year, the path of radical bookselling has many by-ways. Our history includes police raids, fascist attacks, internal arguments about structure and endless debates over what to stock! Behind the anecdotes lies a serious attempt to change the world, one book at a time.

Ross Bradshaw has been involved in radical bookselling and publishing since the 1970s and now runs his own bookshop in Nottingham, England.

Talk by Natascha Hagenbeek

I can change the world with my two hands

In 2004 Natascha Hagenbeek discovered the Whole Earth Catalog (1968-1972) and saw a link with the upcoming practical idealism. In her lecture Hagenbeek shows how current the Whole Earth Catalog is and how this has been the basis for her project I can change the world with my two hands. Her project is about how you yourself can be the change you want to see in the world.

Natascha Hagenbeek is an artist and trendscout. What is happening in society and who and what is marginalized by society is the starting point for her art projects. In her work and personal life she questions the sincerity and (re)searches the space for autonomy within the existing system. Hagenbeek has lived in a ‘free zone’ (vrijplaats) for years, and was involved with developing an alternative money system Noppes en pioneered with urban farming and permaculture in Amsterdam. In her previous work I love being down at the farm and geometry in free space she follows “collaborators” Pim en Rachne, who place themselves outside of society in their own way. Hagenbeek has done the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Jan van Eyck Academie.

Talk by Manuel Luis Martinez

How The Revolution Will Be Televised

Manuel Luis Martinez talk will be about the use of raw documentary as a contemporary form for migrant/undocumented youth (14-18 years of age) who use the medium to protest the pollution caused by pesticides. This is a carryover from the 1960s Chicano Movement and Cesar Chavez-led United Farmworkers organizing and the emphasis on environmentalism from the perspective of the invisible people who work the earth in California. The issues have remained the same even as the form of communal activism has changed.

Manuel Luis Martinez serves as professor of creative writing at the University of Texas-Dallas. His novels include, Crossing, Drift, Day of the Dead, and Los Duros. His scholarship on the American Counterculture includes the book, Countering the Counterculture:Rereading Dissent from Kerouac to Rivera. He holds a Ph.d from Stanford University, and is the recipient of multiple fellowships. His work has been recognized by the American PEN Center, the Dobie Paisano Fellowship, and the MacDowell Colony. He was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2013. Most recently, he was awarded an American Book Award for Los Duros.

Talk by Bernardo Zanotta

Skipped School and Went to the Movies

A speculative reading of Lamberto Bava’s Demons saga and its connection to 80’s film spectatorship. Departing from a Gothic perspective on counterculture, horror and technological development.

Bernardo Zanotta (Porto Alegre, 1996) is a Brazilian filmmaker/visual artist, living and working in Amsterdam. He obtained his bachelor degree from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. In previous years his work has been exhibited at festivals/spaces like: 71st Locarno Film Festival (Locarno, Switzerland), 64th Kurzfilmtage (Oberhausen, Germany), BIDEODROMO (Bilbao, Spain), Process Film Festival (Riga, Latvia), Supermarket Art Fair (Stockholm, Sweden) and Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem, the Netherlands).

Talk by Jim Campers

Forward Escape Into the Past

The photographic styles of the Belgian artist Jim Campers are highly varied: some of his images resemble scientific illustrations or travel journals, while others recall advertisements or visual experiments. Yet not a single work of his is non-committal. Research plays an essential part in the way he approaches his subjects and chooses the geographical locations for his photographs. Campers thus immerses himself in highly specialized subjects via underground literature or online blogs. His lecture will give a glimpse in his methodology and his latest two projects which were merged together in his last two solo exhibitions and artist book.

Jim Campers (1990) grew up in Antwerp, Belgium, the place where he still lives and works. His work is founded on a complex web, a game of references and significations in which diverse subjects are integrated into a larger narrative. By connecting the images to eachother the larger narrative will appear. Recurring themes are the self-imposed exile from society, struggles with society, and alienating forms of perception through drug-induced trance. Campersstudied Photography at Sint Lukas Higher College for Arts & Science Brussel (2009 -2012), and followed in this period an exchange program with the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig where he followed the class of Peter Piller. After obtaining his BA in Brussels, he achieved his MA (2012 -2013) in KASKA Antwerp at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.