Program of the session 3.1

Here comes the printable version of the program of the theory course in the week from January 15 to 18, 2007. The goal of the session is a "soft reboot" of the theory program after one year, as well as a general debate about the relationship between theory and artistic production.

TUESDAY, JAN 16

10 am - 12 am

Collaborative Reading of a short text Michel Foucault wrote as the preface of the english edition of "Anti-Oedipus" by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.

Copies will be available at the beginning of the seminar in the "art&architecture" space

02pm - 06pm

Studiovisits

WEDNESDAY JAN 17

10am - 12am

Why does theory matter for art and artists? Wednesday, the new theory-day, will start with a general conversation about the status, the impact and the various meanings of theory in the field of arts. Is theory opposed to practice? Is it maybe just an unsubstantiated guess or hunch? Can we use theory to explain, predict and master phenomena by constructing models of reality?

Please bring any objects, ideas, proposals that may answer or illustrate the question with you to the "art&architecture" space!

02pm - 05pm

Screening and discussion of various short films, excerpts and materials

07pm

Movie screening in Skybar

"Last year at Marienbad" (L'Année dernière à Marienbad), 1961, Alain Resnais

A cinematic puzzle, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad is a radical exploration of the formal possibilities of film. Beautifully shot in Cinemascope by Sacha Vierny, the movie is a riddle of seduction, a mercurial enigma darting between a present and past which may not even exist, let alone converge. The film stars Giorgio Albertazzi as an unnamed sophisticate attempting to convince a similarly nameless woman (Delphine Seyrig) that they met and were romantically involved a year ago in the same enormous, baroque European hotel. In the end, it hardly matters -- they're not characters so much as pawns anyway. Hypnotically dreamlike, Last Year at Marienbad is a surrealist parody of Hollywood melodrama, a high-fashion romance with a dark, alien underbelly. According to screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet, the movie is a pure construction, without a frame of reference outside of its own existence -- the lives of its characters begin when the lights go down, and conclude when they come back up.

THURSDAY JAN 18

10 am

Studiovisits

Last Year at Marienbad

L'année dernière à Marienbad (translated as Last Year in Marienbad in the UK and Last Year at Marienbad in North America) is a 1961 French movie directed by Alain Resnais, starring Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff. It is famous for its enigmatic narrative structure, in which truth and fiction are difficult to distinguish, and the exact temporal and spatial relationship of the events is open to question.

The oneiric nature of the film has fascinated and baffled audiences and critics, some hailing it as a masterpiece, whilst others find it incomprehensible. In a huge, old-fashioned luxury hotel a stranger tries to persuade a married woman to run away with him, but it seems she hardly remembers the affair they may have had (or not?) last year at Marienbad.

Links:

"Last Year at Marienbad: An Intertextual Meditation" by Thomas Beltzer
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/10/marienbad.html

N.Y. Times Review by Bosley Crowther
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=28413

At the Crossroads:
"Deleuze begins his redefinition of film consciousness by taking issue with this multiple view of several consciousnesses to a view of no determinate consciousness. Rather than present particular views on the world from narrative centers, Deleuze's interpretation of the forks and splitting of unfurling imagery shows that "the characters themselves are attributes in a logic of memory presented by the film's overall strategy" (Rodowick 102), which moves by leaps, temporal disjunction, and fractured identity. This crucial step means that if images are to be read through a logic of memory, we are no longer in the realm of commonly accepted subjectivity but rather within a machinic series emanating from a molecular level of process. This is the formation of realities and objects through assemblages, which include and absorb the brain and body within the indiscemibility of matter and memory."
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3768/is_200401/ai_n9468303

Lentil Soup with Vegetables

Here comes the recipe for the lentil soup we are going to cook during the wednesday theory session.

Lentil Soup with Vegetables

INGREDIENTS:

• 4-6 Tablespoons olive oil
• 10 small carrots, chopped
• 6 celery stalks, sliced
• 4 onion, peeled & chopped
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 4 can whole tomatoes, with their juice
• 12 cups water
• 4 cups lentils, picked over & rinsed well
• 4 Tablespoon wine vinegar
• salt & freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION:

1. In a Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over med-heat and add the carrots, celery, onion, salt and pepper. Cook stirring, about 5 minutes, or until onion is translucent.

2. Add garlic and thyme and cook until vegetables begin to soften. Add the tomatoes with their juice, breaking the tomatoes with a large spoon.

3. Add the water and lentils and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer partially covered, about 30 minutes or until lentils are tender.

To serve:

Stir in the vinegar just before serving and ladle into 12 soup bowls.