Mutations in feminism: genealogies and artistic practices

From the 4th to the 23rd of April 2005
Coordination: Mª José Belbel, Erreakzioa-Reacción
(Estibaliz Sadaba, Azucena Vieites) and Beatriz Preciado.

In order to understand the changes in the various feminist languages and practices through the changes in the historical and political conditions of the last thirty years, we will be asking ourselves questions by taking the political relevance of feminism at the present time as a starting point. We will be getting back to feminist traditions on the basis of contemporary questions. To do this we will head for the boundaries of feminism with postcolonial criticism, transgender policies, and Drag King masculinity performances. This is about questioning other fringe movements on the basis of which we can interpret our own eccentricity.

This seminar proposes to be a continuation of, and a junction between The re-politicisation of sexual space in contemporary artistic practices held at Arteleku in September 2004 and the Gender Technologies workshop at the Macba. The re-politicisation of sexual space provided an overview of certain contemporary artistic practices in order to analyse the impact that queer theories and practices had had on feminist policies regarding identity, gender and sexual difference. The Gender Technologies workshop, that began in 2004 and will continue in 2005, is a laboratory where the traditional relationship between aesthetics and politics can be altered: we could talk about policies of form and cellular aesthetics of collective passions. This is an equation that also produces a chiasmus in which the dramatisation of the political space (performance policies) and rigorous experimentation in the field of subjectivity (techno-bio-policy) intersect. This is a Spinoza-like vision of political micro-passions: a fold in which we can experiment with doses of hormones, visual and textual devices, tags, labelling, porno codes, and cybernetic circuits…

Here we are offering three weeks of meetings, lectures, debates, workshops, performances and music within a theoretical and political frame of reference based on feminist, post-feminist, lesbian, queer and transgender languages.

Constructing the Archive: the gender technologies workshop at the Macba will be launching a special issue of the magazine, PIG, (Gender Invention Platform/Post-porno Iberian Guerrilla) to produce a direct archive of the various debates, workshops, lectures... in the seminar Disagreements. Mutations in feminism: genealogies and artistic practices.


DOCUMENTARY ARCHIVE
This documentary archive presents part of the material produced by the Disagreements project from the research process that started in 2003. It will include the MAGMA space that brings together some presentations, actions and work by collectives, groups and associations that are active in Spain.
ENROLMENT FOR THE SEMINAR
Applications should be made by sending the attached registration form, curriculum and a short letter explaining the reasons why you would like to take part in the seminar to Arteleku (by e-mail: arteleku@gipuzkoa.net by post: Arteleku. Kristobaldegi, 14. 20014 Donostia or through the web page: www.arteleku.net), by 2’00 pm on the 23rd of March 2005. The maximum number of participants will be 20. The selection process will be carried out by the coordinators of the seminar and the applicants will be personally informed of their decision.