The prefix ‘trans-’ points to some of the problems of universal concepts and ongoing boundary disputes between epistemes. It modifies the meaning of what it is attached to: transaction, transcription, transgression, translocation, transmission, translation, transdisciplinarity, to name only a few of the many examples in contemporary culture. Transart Institute positions itself in these alternative name-spaces where art practice, knowledge production, and research processes operate in the tensions between, across, through, and beyond establishing paradigms. Rather than prefixing meaning, Hito Steyerl talks about artistic research speaking several languages at once – and as ‘an act of translation’. But if this is the case, the symposium asks how do we further translate ‘trans’ to account for the apparent normalisation of its application?

In the symposium, we wish to be reflexive (not least about the use of the term trans-art), and explore further acts of translation through short papers and alternative forms of presentation such as performance-lectures. Presenters explore new modes of communication and exchange, the spaces in which knowledge is formed, produced and disseminated, challenge forms and paradigms through which artistic research operates, and reflect on the deeper consequences of changing something to something else. In discussion we hope to uncover alternative models of knowledge production, excavate relatively forgotten histories, explore the potential of technological paradigms to redefine possibilities, and reveal examples of non-traditional methods, use of non-textual language, speculations, and actions.

Schedule:

12.00 – 12.05 // welcome: Klaus Knoll
12.05 – 12.15 // introduction: Geoff Cox – Trans What?
12.15 – 12.45 // keynote: Julia Moritz – What Trans?
12.45 – 13.00 discussion (moderated by Geoff Cox)
break

13.30 – 15.30 // trans-positions (moderated by Debbie Robinson)
Monika Jaeckel – Turn around, make a round turn
Thomas Baugh – Trans memory and trans-remembering
Rachelle Viader Knowles – Translocating art practice
Christopher Danowski and Laura González – Trance Art and Other Possessions
break

16.00 – 17.30 // trans-mutations (moderated by Geoff Cox)
Arianne Conty – Mediations
Emile Devereaux – Title TBC
Helen Pritchard – Making Casper
break + screening // Mez Breeze – netwurker_mez + her cardboard avatar

18.00 – 19.30 // trans-missions (moderated by Debbie Robinson)
Michelle Lewis-King – Pulse Project
Charlie Tweed – Rewriting the overcode
Morten Riis – Operative magnetics
19.30 – 20.00 // plenary (moderated by Debbie Robinson)

20.00 // drinks
Francisco Javier Fernández Gallardo – Talking Dirty (tasting event)

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