February Meetup

Crossing Lines: February meetup: New Academic Building Room 3.26: 6 – 8 pm: Wednesday 1st February 2012

There are two main presentations for this month’s meetup.

First, a presentation on the first Crossing Lines Group Project for 2012: Memorial:

Memorial – If one considers non-places in terms of the ignored place, the nothing-place, the vacuum, and then considers memorials as meaningful, significant places, then we have an opposition. It would be a challenge to photograph the meaningful in the city. Memorial is a good word, and of course applies to much more than statues of men on horses.

- Who decides where meaning lies?
- Who decides how it is represented?
- Must memorial be collective and public?
- Can it be private and personal? Is this a source of tension?
- Must memorial be physical? Must it be permanent?
- To what extent must a memorial be a place?

Nick Scammell quotes from Annette Kuhn‘s ‘Remembrance‘:

“The struggle is now, the past is made in the present.

Memories evoked by a photo do not simply spring out of the image itself, but are generated in an intertext of discourses that shift between past and present, spectator and image,  and between all these and cultural contexts, historical moments. In all this, the image figures largely as a trace, a clue: necessary, but not sufficient, to the act of meaning-making; always signalling somewhere else….What happens, then, if we take absences, silences, as evidence?”

The photograph as a type of memorial in and of itself.

Alex Macilniney has begun working with sound and will be showing new images and playing audio field recordings of Canary Wharf as part of his ongoing project on financial districts.

As a complement to Alex’s presentation John Levett will introduce recordings from Michelangelo Antonioni: Trilogy And Epilogue a recent project inspired by four of Antonioni’s films and including works by Marc Behrens, Olivia Block, Jason Kahn & Steinbruchel.

February meetup call-out

Crossing Lines: February meetup:New Academic Building: room 3.26: 6 – 8 p.m.: Wednesday 1st February 2012: call out

Please mail me if you’d like to book a slot for the February meetup. [john.levett@gmail.com]

As always, please consider the Crossing Lines meetup as an opportunity to float an new idea that you feel doesn’t fit into the customary outlets; anything that might promote a collaboration; anything arising from previous meetups that has edged towards fresh insights or simply new questions.

A one or two sentence summary that I can use in the mailout & on the CUCR site would be appreciated.

All contributions carry equal appreciation. If you’re unsure whether anything will fit the format of the evening then it’s possibly the sort of idea that will!

We will shortly be starting a fresh group project derived from the discussion docs that Michael Rodgers & Nick Scammell presented at the end of 2011.

Nick has prepared the following intro to the Project which will kick-off in February:

Memorial – If one considers non-places in terms of the ignored place, the nothing-place, the vacuum, and then considers memorials as meaningful, significant places, then we have an opposition. It would be a challenge to photograph the meaningful in the city. Memorial is a good word, and of course applies to much more than statues of men on horses.

- Who decides where meaning lies?
- Who decides how it is represented?
- Must memorial be collective and public?
- Can it be private and personal? Is this a source of tension?
- Must memorial be physical? Must it be permanent?
- To what extent must a memorial be a place?

We have the room booked from 5 p.m. so if anyone wants to come along for an informal pre-meet then please mail me.

The full programme for the evening will be published next week.