Letter for Project 3 (reading group)
Dear reading group,
Thank you for showing interest in WITHOUT’s reading group. WITHOUT is a project I am putting together for the front space at 200 Gertrude Street in the context of the Midsumma Gay and Lesbian festival. I wanted one of the activities for the piece to be a reflection on an artistic and cultural period we currently don’t inhabit – a period from the mid 80’s to mid 90’s. Identity politics, Queer theory, a return to subjectivity, cultural activism and an emphasis on theoretical models in the analysis of artistic production where some of the hallmark features - discourses that still pop up in a festival like Midsumma. I thought it might be interesting to actually look at some of the canonical texts together in an informal reading group and place them in our current context. While we might be familiar with the rhetoric in the texts – there will be something new for most of us. To tackle the issues raised in the reading I’m thinking we’ll probably need two sessions over the period of Jan 16th - Jan 29th. At the moment the list of texts looks tentatively like this:
- A chapter of Judith Butler, probably from Gender Trouble.
- A chapter from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (probably from the Epistemology of the Closet)
- The BAD GAY ART catalogue featuring a short curatorial text from Robert Schubert and a longer work by Dean Kiley.
- An article form OCTOBER (43, Winter 1987) “AIDS Cultural Analysis, Cultural activism”
- If ACCA gets around to helping – trying to find a catalogue from the old ACCA – they had VNS Matrix, (A cyberfeminist manifesto for the 21st Century) and a REA show in the early 90’s. Apparently they haven’t archived their catalogues – Can you believe it? (Working on it)
- I’m also looking at picking an article out from More Gender Trouble: Feminism meets Queer Theory – maybe a take from Elizabeth Grosz on psychoanalysis via feminism and lesbianism or another article in the same journal by Carole-Anne Tyler “Passing: Narcissism, identity and Difference.”
- Something a bit more pop from early Art + Text.
I am also making these cardboard helmets (deep sea diving/astronaut style) that are incised with coloured cellophane windows (think stain glass) – as a utopic marker of the different lenses that this reading will introduce – or maybe its to protect us from the fallout or maybe I just like to outfit and accessorise an event like this. I don’t know - but what I need you to do is to tell me the kind of geometric forms that you would like your helmet to come in. Totally sperical is hard for a stiff cardboard – so think rigid cardboard and just send me a brief description.
I am logging/documenting the project (and its lead up) on my blog that could be found at www.with-out.blogspot.com.
So what I need you all to do is send me your residential or work addresses so that I can drop of a parcel (whichever is more convenient). I would also like you to email me your availability during the period that runs from Jan 16th – Jan 29th. Lets give ourselves 1.5 hours for each session. While the activity can’t avoid being earnest in some way – I want it to have the scope to be relaxed, critical, confused, deluded and fun. No academics are going to rain on this parade, so really it’s what we as a group, want to make of it. Don’t hesitate to give me a call –-------------. Oh yeah – there will be cookies and milk.
Best,
Spiros Panigirakis
Thank you for showing interest in WITHOUT’s reading group. WITHOUT is a project I am putting together for the front space at 200 Gertrude Street in the context of the Midsumma Gay and Lesbian festival. I wanted one of the activities for the piece to be a reflection on an artistic and cultural period we currently don’t inhabit – a period from the mid 80’s to mid 90’s. Identity politics, Queer theory, a return to subjectivity, cultural activism and an emphasis on theoretical models in the analysis of artistic production where some of the hallmark features - discourses that still pop up in a festival like Midsumma. I thought it might be interesting to actually look at some of the canonical texts together in an informal reading group and place them in our current context. While we might be familiar with the rhetoric in the texts – there will be something new for most of us. To tackle the issues raised in the reading I’m thinking we’ll probably need two sessions over the period of Jan 16th - Jan 29th. At the moment the list of texts looks tentatively like this:
- A chapter of Judith Butler, probably from Gender Trouble.
- A chapter from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (probably from the Epistemology of the Closet)
- The BAD GAY ART catalogue featuring a short curatorial text from Robert Schubert and a longer work by Dean Kiley.
- An article form OCTOBER (43, Winter 1987) “AIDS Cultural Analysis, Cultural activism”
- If ACCA gets around to helping – trying to find a catalogue from the old ACCA – they had VNS Matrix, (A cyberfeminist manifesto for the 21st Century) and a REA show in the early 90’s. Apparently they haven’t archived their catalogues – Can you believe it? (Working on it)
- I’m also looking at picking an article out from More Gender Trouble: Feminism meets Queer Theory – maybe a take from Elizabeth Grosz on psychoanalysis via feminism and lesbianism or another article in the same journal by Carole-Anne Tyler “Passing: Narcissism, identity and Difference.”
- Something a bit more pop from early Art + Text.
I am also making these cardboard helmets (deep sea diving/astronaut style) that are incised with coloured cellophane windows (think stain glass) – as a utopic marker of the different lenses that this reading will introduce – or maybe its to protect us from the fallout or maybe I just like to outfit and accessorise an event like this. I don’t know - but what I need you to do is to tell me the kind of geometric forms that you would like your helmet to come in. Totally sperical is hard for a stiff cardboard – so think rigid cardboard and just send me a brief description.
I am logging/documenting the project (and its lead up) on my blog that could be found at www.with-out.blogspot.com.
So what I need you all to do is send me your residential or work addresses so that I can drop of a parcel (whichever is more convenient). I would also like you to email me your availability during the period that runs from Jan 16th – Jan 29th. Lets give ourselves 1.5 hours for each session. While the activity can’t avoid being earnest in some way – I want it to have the scope to be relaxed, critical, confused, deluded and fun. No academics are going to rain on this parade, so really it’s what we as a group, want to make of it. Don’t hesitate to give me a call –-------------. Oh yeah – there will be cookies and milk.
Best,
Spiros Panigirakis
posted by Spiros Panigirakis at 4:22 PM
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