REPETITION/S: Performance and Philosophy in Ljubljana
an academic & artistic event
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dates: 22-24 September, 2016
Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2016
Confirmed participants:
Andrew Benjamin (Monash University, Melbourne)
Justin Clemens (University of Melbourne)
Keti Chukhrov (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow)
Mladen Dolar (University of Ljubljana)
Bojana Kunst (Justus Liebig University Giessen)
Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University)
Oxana Timofeeva (European University at St Petersburg)
Samo Tomšič (Humboldt University Berlin)
Alenka Zupančič (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana)
Call for Papers & Performances:
Repetition, as a pivotal concept in contemporary theory and aesthetic practice, announces a movement away from logics of representation. Where the concept of representation had once predominated in attempts to think and enact the world, Alenka Zupančič notes that with the arrival of Deleuze, the shift from previous modes of thought “takes the form of a straightforward conceptual war: repetition against representation” (2008: 149-150). This conceptual warfare has perhaps nowhere laid out its stakes more clearly than on the contemporary scene of artistic practices. Within the domains of the visual, sonic and performing arts and their theorisations, the tensions between repetition and representation map out a common ground of encounter. Contemporary investigations into this contested territory are increasingly challenging the very modalities and terms in which both art and philosophy are practiced, or performed.
Invoking the concepts of both time and space as constitutive aspects, the problem of repetition raises topical questions of, on the one hand, processes of perception, (re)cognition, thought, memory, habit, and speech; and on the other, the dynamics of economic structures and historical processes. The notion of repetition also opens onto many other key questions being posed in and by contemporary philosophical and aesthetic practices: questions of the relations between body and thought, between the structure and the exception, between content and form. There is, moreover, no single or unified notion of repetition: rather, a number of divergent philosophical ontologies emerge, each taking the concept as its point of departure, and developing in dialogue with (amongst others) Hegelian and Marxist dialectics, Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return, the Kierkegaardian concept of repetition, psychoanalytic theorisations with Freud’s Wiederholungszwang and Lacan’s automatisme de répétition and instance de la lettre, linguistic performativity, Derridean iterability and différance, and Deleuzian repetition as the production of difference.
Today, contemporary developments in the increasingly intertwined fields of philosophy and performance call for a renewed inquiry into the question of repetition. With its unique critique of ideology arising from a synthesis of German Idealism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Ljubljana School (Dolar, Zupančič, Žižek et al.) continues to furnish important theorisations of repetition and performance as they pertain to subjectivity and the political. One of the primary aims of REPETITION/S will be to investigate and develop the usefulness of the Ljubljana School’s theorisations for the emerging field of Performance Philosophy. The city is a major centre of art practice, with a specific strength in performing arts, and 2016 is Ljubljana’s first year as an UNESCO City of Literature. Scheduled to coincide with the City Museum of Ljubljana’s art & performance festival, the academic and artistic events constituting REPETITION/S will be co-hosted by the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture and the University of Ljubljana.
In the experimental spirit of Performance Philosophy, we seek to host a polydisciplinary event bringing together a variety of scholars and artists. We encourage creative, engaged approaches to the event’s terms of investigation. In addition to papers we particularly invite performative lectures, exercises of or experiments with repetition, workshops, cross-disciplinary panel discussions, new media presentations, and public interventions. We welcome propositions for 20-minute presentations, 60-minute 3-person panels, workshops or performances up to a maximum of 60 minutes. Please note that while the time-limit for performances is negotiable, REPETITION/S can provide only venue space and basic audio-visual equipment – artists are therefore encouraged to propose relatively self-reliant contributions in terms of resources. However, we welcome enquiries and are happy to discuss possibilities for presentation.
Please send a 300-word abstract, including a title and a brief bio-bibliography, in either Word or PDF format to contact@repetitions2016.org. The deadline for submission is April 30, 2016.
Suggested topics/questions:
– Traditions of repetition: Hegel – Nietzsche – Kierkegaard – Deleuze – Lacan – Badiou (etc.)
– Repetition, resistance, revolution
– Repetition, economy and structures of power
– Repetition and the Unrepeatable
– ‘New materialisms’ & repetition
– Repetition beyond, or behind, representation
– Performing repetition
– On repetition and the new
– Repetition and exception: between a gap and a surplus
– Repetition / rehearsal / ritual
– The temporality of repetition
– “First as tragedy, then as farce”
– Technological revolutions, digital repetitions
– Repetition terminable or interminable
Organising Committee:
Bara Kolenc (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Gregor Moder (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Anna Street (Sorbonne, France)
Ben Hjorth (Monash, Australia)
Advisory Board Members:
Elisabeth Angel-Perez, Paris-Sorbonne University
Andrew Benjamin, Monash University, Melbourne
Laura Cull, University of Surrey
Will Daddario, Illinois State University
Mladen Dolar, University of Ljubljana
Simon Kardum, Kino Šiška Center for Urban Culture
Peter Klepec, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Mirt Komel, Aufhebung International Hegelian Association
Lev Kreft, University of Ljubljana
Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, Goethe University of Frankfurt
Freddie Rokem, Tel Aviv University
Polona Tratnik, Slovenian Society for Aesthetics
Alenka Zupančič, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The conference is sponsored by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana, the City Museum of Ljubljana, the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, the Aufhebung Association, the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Monash University, the Australian Slovenian Academic Association, and the research laboratories VALE and PRITEPS at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, in partnership with the international research network Performance Philosophy.
For more information, please visit the website at www.repetitions2016.org.