The Anthropocene Today

Masterclass by Graham Harman

25. February 2015
Sonic Acts Festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This workshop will focus on what the Anthropocene means for ontology as well as for politics. Speculative Realist philosophy is known to seek the world as it is apart from human access. Given that the Anthropocene is, by definition, a geological era created by human activity, it might seem impossible to ask about the Anthropocene apart from interference by humans. Yet the fact that humans triggered the Anthropocene does not mean that the features of the Anthropocene are transparent to human knowledge. This ambiguity in the human relation to the Anthropocene (we created it, yet do not understand it) is the basic puzzle of Anthopocene ontology.

To participate

This masterclass is aimed at artists, curators, critics, philosophers and cultural practitioners. Please send a biography and a short motivation outlining why you would like to particpate in a specific masterclass/workshop to: masterclass[@]sonicacts[.]com. Deadline for application is Friday 13 February 2015.

 

Wednesday 25 February
10:30 - 17:30
BAK Utrecht

 

 

Graham Harman (US) is Distinguished University Professor at the American University in Cairo, where he has worked since 2000. He is a founding member of the Speculative Realism movement, and chief exponent of object-oriented philosophy. Harman is the 2009 winner of the AUC Excellence in Research and Creative Endeavors Award, and was ranked at #68 in the list ‘most influential figures in the international art world’ by Art Review magazine 2014. He has written eleven books, most recently Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (2012), Bells and Whistles: More Speculative Realism (2013), and Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Political (2014). Harman is the editor of the Speculative Realism book series published by Edinburgh University Press, and (with Bruno Latour) co-editor of the New Metaphysics book series of Open Humanities Press.

 

This masterclass is organised by Sonic Acts in partnership with BAK and Dark Ecology.

Read more at festival website: Masterclass by Graham Harman

Visit festival website: www.sonicacts.com

Read on an interview with Graham Harman on the Anthropocene by Liesbeth Koot and Menno Grootveld, where he elaborates on both art and politics. He explains his idea of why art should not be understood as autonomous from its surroundings, but instead should always be understood in relation to humans. Moreover, Harman explains how thinking about art in this way, leads to thinking about the Anthropocene. In discussing politics Harman talks about Bruno Latour, Hobbes and Carl Schmitt and about how the distinction between left and right is by now less important than the distinction between truth politics and power politics, and while doing this he highlights the importance of Noortje Marres’ dissertation ‘No Issue, No Public’.

‘Art doesn't give answers. It is not a form of knowledge.’

 

 

Soni Acts

 

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