Tuesday 26 October 2010

Taking Part






Alexandra Joensson and I are going to be presenting at Taking Part: Arts, Culture and Civil Society, which takes place at the South Bank Centre on 29th October and Goldsmiths College on 30th October.

The focus of the conference will be on the role of the arts and cultural production in civil society. For instance, should they be deployed to promote cohesion or to help marginalised groups of people? Or does this simply instrumentalise practices which should rely on their own values to measure their worth, rather than the extent they can be put to use.

We'll be presenting our project X_MSG: Speculations in Social Software and Sex Work Activism, an experimental effort to set up a dynamic many to many text message network in partnership with the sex work worker's co-operative x:talk. The system is designed support the political activism and radical pedagogy of the group, whilst also adapting, reflecting and restructuring (according to) elements of their internal politics.

We'll be present on the Saturday, first in the Short Snaps session (i.e. Pecha Kucha without the copyright infringement) and then in the New Media workshop for the afternoon. With luck, they'll be someone from the South Bank Centre's Global Poetry System there as well, who we can have a right good natter with. Should be fun!

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