UF12 03 09 10 THE REAL THING

Urbanomic present an evening event at Tate Britain with contemporary sound, video and sculptural work, and other interventions exploring the emerging philosophical paradigm of Speculative Realism and its impact on contemporary art practice.

Supported by

Swiss Cultural Fund in Britain

Documentation

photographs
[Images 1,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 © Biggi Stiller, © Tate]

Featuring work by artists Amanda Beech, William Bennett, Mikko Canini, John Gerrard, Florian Hecker and Pamela Rosenkranz, the event included:

Premieres of two new sound works commissioned by Urbanomic:
- Speculative Solution by Florian Hecker, exploring conceptual themes from French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux's After Finitude, which argues for the absolute contingency of all laws of nature;
- Extralinguistic Sequencing by William Bennett (Whitehouse) + Mimsy DeBlois, using processed voice recordings and disorienting language patterns to expose an extralinguistic reality operating beneath 'meaning'.

Screenings of British artist Amanda Beech's Sanity Assassin (2009), a claustrophobic journey through exiled German philosopher Adorno's LA nightmares, and drawing on philosopher Ray Brassier's nihilist masterpiece Nihil Unbound, with its declaration that we are all 'already dead'; and Canadian artist Mikko Canini's The Black Sun Rise (2010), a darkly abstract survey of a depopulated London.

An installation, in one of the Tate's sculpture galleries, of work drawn from Swiss artist Pamela Rosenkranz's show at Istituto Svizzero in Venice 'Our Sun'. A speculative-realist interrogation of the classic Venetian aesthetic of 'light and water', Rosenkranz's work opens a dialogue with Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani's Cyclonopedia, a 'theory-fiction' that rethinks the relation between sun and earth.

A curatorial intervention rethinking the Tate Britain room Art and the Sublime as The Real and the Sublime, with a work Lufkin (near Hugo, Colorado) (2009) by John Gerrard, who uses advanced 3d technology to create uncannily 'real' virtual environments.

A panel discussion with Robin Mackay, Iain Hamilton Grant, Mark Fisher (K-Punk) and Amanda Beech.

Centred around the approaches of philosophers Quentin Meillassoux (Paris), Ray Brassier (American University in Beirut), Iain Hamilton Grant (Bristol UWE) and Graham Harman (American University in Cairo), and with the additional tangential influence of Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani, Speculative Realism refuses to interrogate reality through human (linguistic, cultural or political) mediations of it, instead drawing upon objective discourses such as mathematics, geology, astrophysics and chemistry to explore the possibility of conceiving of a reality indifferent to humans - a universe that exists before, after, and despite its manifestation in human experience.

As well as generating tremendous interest in philosophical circles, Speculative Realism has also been taken up in cultural theory and contemporary art, suggesting that the paradigm of a human-indifferent universe strikes a chord with twenty-first century cultural preoccupations.

Urbanomic's journal Collapse was instrumental in bringing Speculative Realism to public attention, having published in 2007 (in Collapse III) the proceedings of the group's inaugural conference at Goldsmiths, University of London, and having consistently featured original work by the members of the group.

Programme:

Sackler Octagon
1800-1900 and 1930-2100 William Bennett + Mimsy De Blois Extralinguistic Sequencing
1900 and 2100 Florian Hecker Speculative Solution

Clore Auditorium
1800-1930 and 2100-2200 Amanda Beech Sanity Assassin (25 min., timed screenings)
1945 - 2045 Panel Discussion: The real, representation, and the in-itself.

Manton Studio
Mikko Canini The Black Sun Rise (3.54., continuous screening)

Ongoing Interventions
Room 9
Urbanomic The Real and the Sublime
John Gerrard Lufkin (near Hugo, Colorado)
Room 13
Pamela Rosenkranz Our Sun

Pamela Rosenkranz's work courtesy of Karma International, Zurich.
John Gerrard's work courtesy of Thomas Dane, London.
Hecker commission supported by The Elephant Trust.

Related Urbanomic Projects

Florian Hecker: Speculative Solution

Related Urbanomic Publications

Collapse Volume II: Speculative Realism
Collapse Volume III: Unknown Deleuze [+Speculative Realism]

Our Sun
Sanity Assassin