Past Events Sponsored by the Centre - 2010
Conferences & Symposia:
Saturday 27 November 2010
Tate ModernThe late 1960s saw a resurgence of interest in the ideas and techniques of surrealism, as many of those involved in counter-cultural struggles to establish new sexual freedoms discovered kinship with the movement. This one-day conference, following on from Tate's screenings of queer and surreal films in March, looked at surrealist-infused practice in the field of film – examining especially the way in which the movement's ideas spread globally, as practitioners experimenting in the field of film, media and performance returned to the surrealist sensorium.
Friday 18 - Sunday 20 June 2010
West Dean College
The 5th International Symposium on Surrealism will be held the weekend of 18-20 June 2010 at West Dean College, near Chichester, England. The theme of this year’s conference will be an assessment of surrealism’s claim to emancipate human desire. This conference is organized by the Edward James Foundation in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies.
Monday 10 May 2010
University of Manchester
Queer studies and childhood studies have become increasingly intertwined over the last decade. Interest has been concentrated on the late nineteenth century as age of consent legislation coincided with the psychoanalytic investigation of childhood sexuality in the work of Sigmund Freud and others. The neglect of the study of childhood within the history of Surrealism is striking – despite André Breton’s assertion, in the first manifesto, that childhood memory was the easiest route into the marvelous. In works by artists and writers as diverse as Hans Bellmer and Dorothea Tanning, Toyen and Max Ernst, or Michel Leiris and Nelly Kaplan – the child is a focus point for a discussion of anxiety, sexuality and the formation of subjectivity itself.
Seminars, Study Days, Talks & Workshops:
Wednesday 15 June 2010
University of ManchesterCentered around Ron Athey's performance Solar Anus, this colloquium brought together scholars of 'dissident' surrealist Georges Bataille and of queer theory to discuss 'the use value' of Bataille in defining 'queer performance.' A roundtable opened to the audience followed the screening of Athey's performance and a conversation between the artist and Dr Dominic Johnson.
Organised by Lisa Newman.
Screenings:
Friday 26 - Sunday 28 March 2010, Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium
Surrealism began as a brotherhood experimenting with trance states, games of chance and research into the world of the marvelous. One of their games was the act of invocation – calling forth forgotten or buried figures: famous or notorious. Although the Surrealists’ social politics initially included a virulent strain of homophobia, the thread woven by André Breton and his peers can be followed into the labyrinth of queer practice throughout the twentieth century and beyond. This special series of screenings and discussions provided a form of invocation where the tangled threads of the Surrealist project and those of queer experimental cinema, exemplified by Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Derek Jarman and many others, will be reflected from the projector’s blinding beam.