Symposium – Parasitic Politics and Aesthetics, Parasite School
Symposium – Parasitic Politics and Aesthetics, Parasite School, Day 1
The Parasite School marks the opening week of On Parasiting, an international artistic project that tests parasitic tactics as a contemporary methodology of resistant artistic practices. Six artists will be working undercover within different companies and organisations, where they take up paid labour.
The project asks how resistance can be enacted from inside existing structures and from a position of complicity. It responds by deliberately operating within these systems and experimenting from the inside: through performative adaptation and precise acts of irritation, it renders visible relations of power, processes of appropriation, and economic dependencies. The parasites carve out the fragility of their host systems and search for spots of resistant artistic practice.
Positioned as a coda to the internal school for the parasite artists, the symposium offers a space to present and discuss tactics, hosts, and modes of irritation in dense dialogue with contributors from the arts, philosophy, and social sciences.
20.06 | Symposium On Parasiting – Parasitic Politics and Aesthetics (Day 1)
Grounded in the specificity of case studies, including the work of economist Jana Costas as well as two forthcoming interventions within the long-term project On Parasiting, the panel formats on Day 1 focus in particular on the aesthetic-political dimensions of irritation, disruption, and resistance, taking existing sites, resources, and infrastructures as their point of departure. Contributions by sociologist and philosopher Oliver Marchart, curator Post Brothers, activists from peng!, and artist Jakob Margit Wirth open up a space in which theory and practice intersect. The day closes with the screening of Pilvi Takala’s Movie The Stroker, which documents one of the artist’s past infiltration experiences.
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For the symposium, please register via: register@parasiting.net (not binding)
Program:
14:00 Welcome and summary of the Parasite Internal School
14:30 Case Study: Cracks, Critique, Cooptation – What is the Role of Research?, Jana Costas
15:15 Introduction of parasite artists and their hosts
16:00 Coffee break
16:15 Stream: The Aesthetics of Parasitic Art with Post Brothers, Jakob Margit Wirth, and tba.
17:00 Keynote: Conflictual Aesthetics, Oliver Marchart
17:30 Panel discussion on the aesthetic-political understanding of Parasite, moderated by Marina Resende Santos, with Oliver Marchart, tba, Jakob-Margit Wirth, and Post Brothers
18:15 Break with snacks
18:30 Short-film screening and discussion with peng! collective
19:00 Open Dinner at diffrakt with Bar