The Art of Subversion - Paris, Sept 2004

[Steffen Bohm]

Dear all,
I've just come across this list and I thought some of you might be
interested in the below conference stream. Deadline for the submission
of abstracts is the end of January. 
Thanks, Steffen


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Please find below a call for contributions for a stream at the Art of
Management and Organization Conference, Paris, 7th–10th Sept 2004
http://www.essex.ac.uk/AFM/emc/second_art_of_management_and_org.htm


THE ART OF SUBVERSION: Art Against Management, Art For Different
Organizational Futures

Conveners: Steffen Böhm, André Spicer and Mel Strauss

On waking, it seems that we are instantly sucked into a cold cash nexus
operated by massive corporations, regulated by faceless multinational
bureaucrats, and policed by American military might. This network goes
under a number of titles including world-wide capitalism, globalisation,
and most recently Empire. Countless social critics have gone to great
lengths to trace out the many tentacles of this global empire, and
detail just how all pervasive it is. Despite the breadth of the debate
there seems to be at least a broad agreement that a central part of this
empire is the process through which the ‘market’ and ‘management’ are
applied to nearly every sector of social life. Nearly any problem that
social life produces (increases in poverty, mounting alienation, obese
children) is deemed to be something that can be solved through more
market and more management. Because this idea is so prevalent we might
call it one of the dominant forms of hegemony in our time. Given the
apparently all-encompassing nature of market managerialism as a form of
hegemony, are we simply to wave a resentful fist at it? Are we to
embrace it with a cynical smirk? Or, is another configuration of
organization possible? 

If we cast an eye across social life, we can see that resistance to
market managerialism is, in fact, not particularly futile. There are
many practices that pensions and punks, immigrants and corporate
insiders are engaged in that challenge the continued dominance of market
managerialism in their own lives. These include street protests,
traditional political mobilization, consciousness raising, whistle
blowing, and organizing alternative economies. Perhaps one of the most
interesting ways of contesting market managerialism has been cultural
means, and in particular the visual culture. This has included culture
jamming, the use of art as a form of political protest, deliberate
reflection on the economy in recent contemporary art, the development of
artist run spaces, and anti-war art to name just a few manifestations.
Surveying the worlds of contemporary art we are struck by the thousands
of reactions to market managerialism. At the heart of many of these
refusals is not just an attempt to question some aspect of contemporary
capitalism, but also an attempt to develop alternatives.

In recognizing resistance to current market managerialism we are also
reminded that there is a rich and deep history within art practice that
has continually called capitalism into question and posed alternatives.
This has included the arts and crafts movement, socialist and labour
art, Dada and other avant-garde movements in the 1920s and 1930s,
responses to ‘the organizational society’ during the 1950s and the
‘consumer society’ of the 1960s, art produced by colonized peoples, and
the many and varied artistic responses to the effects of neo-liberalism
all over the world. Perhaps by recalling the histories of these artistic
struggles, we may be able to contribute to contemporary struggles
against market managerialism. 

In order to explore this territory, we would like to include
contributions exploring artistic practices of resistance to and
subversion of ‘market managerialism’ (broadly put). Contributors may
want to explore, for example:

• The influence of market managerialism on cultural institutions, and
ways in which cultural workers work within and resist the rising tide of
neo-liberalism. 
• Artistic re-actions to the introduction of mechanized cultural
production and attempts to create alternatives. 
• The cultural labour process and various forms of resistances within
this labour process. 
• Attempts to critique and build alternatives to consumerism through
artistic means. 
• The art of the labour movement and its role in organizing solidarity. 
• The development of political artistic communities. 
• The role of art in organizing resistance movements. 
• Artistic imaginations of alternative social organizations.

Although this stream in interested in exploring the role of art in
subverting and resisting the hegemony of market managerialism, it does
not aim to be simply negative. Ultimately we seek to include
contributions that not only expose, critique and resist dominant
management discourses in society, but indeed attempt to explore
alternative organizational futures. In our view, art plays an important
part in imagining a different world, and in this stream we hope to be
able to stage and give voice to some of these images of radically
different social organizations.

We are particularly interested in historical, empirical, theoretical, or
cultural forms of artistic engagement with how ‘market managerialism’ is
resisted and how organizational alternatives are imagined. We seek to
put together a transdisciplinary group of artists, professionals,
academics and students to present contributions that can range from
academic papers to paintings and from sound installations to multimedia
presentations. We imagine this stream to be an event: an artistic space
that presents a multitude of political, subversive engagements with the
hegemony of market managerialism, a space that might create images of
alternative organizational futures.

Please send an abstract of approx. 500 words outlining your contribution
to André Spicer by the 31st of January 2004. Although any media will be
accepted for your actual contribution to the stream, we first require
this abstract so that a selection of the most promising contributions
can be made.

Enquires and abstracts should be directed to: 
André Spicer
andre.spicer at wbs.ac.uk
University of Warwick,
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom