The
These are some of the questions that this symposium loo
ks to investigate at a time when there is so much clamour from progressive
thinkers and activists to abandon the past and imagine the future, to leap
beyond the nightmare of the long twentieth century – the one that seems so
impossible to exit, that weights on the minds of the living like a tumour.
But what if the future was already in the past, lurking radioactively in ro
ads not taken, in failed appointments and missed opportunities? Perhaps art
ists, of all people, are the ones most keenly attuned to this disjunction,
aware, as they often are, that there is nothing new under the sun, that eve
rything is a recycling of something else.
If this is the case, then it seems crucial to explore how co
ntemporary artists engage with the idea of re-playing, talking with them ab
out their practices, experimenting with their diverse findings. The artists
and thinkers in the symposium have little truck with modernist and colonia
list notions of ‘originality’ – a kind of scorched earth policy, a spurious
, imperialist venture into terra nullius. Instead, they look to re-play the
past, stopping and stilling it, so that new possibilities can emerge from
the ‘shock of the old’. In this ethics of ruin, this politics of abandonmen
t, it may become possible to reconfigure how we ‘do’ the present so as to c
ontest the progress myths of modernity and imperialism. This would be a per
verse and playful mode of contestation that moves forward by going backward
s. In this ‘tactics of the re-play’, one uncovers the power to resist all t
hose reactionary notions of heritage and history that look to attribute eve
rything to its proper time and place. And through that – who knows? – it ma
y even be possible to breathe new life into that most seemingly defunct of
all concepts: the idea of revolution, conceived now as a geometric figure t
hat, like a compass, creates the new by rotating back on itself, coming ful
l circle.
Artists and think
ers who will be responding to these questions and showing work include Gera
rd Byrne, Delafontainetniel, La Compagnie Dodescaden, Sarah Browne, Conor C
arville, Minty Donald and Nick Millar, Graham Eatough, Ashanti Harris, Luke
Fowler, Lee Hassall, Emmanuel Grimaud, Kevin Leomo, Sarah Neeley, Vincent
Rioux, Farah Saleh, and Simon Starling.
Symposium organised by Carl Lavery, Dominic Paterson and Melanie La very.
Panel Descriptions
Replaying Lostness –
Wed 15 May, 16.00- 21.00 (Cinema)
This panel explores the relationship between re-playing an
d film. Luke Fowler and Sarah Neely discuss Luke’s film Being in a Place in
the context of what it means to re-play an unmade film project by Margaret
Tait; and Emmanuel Grimaud investigates how film is able to re-play the gh
osts and spectres of forgotten lives (historical and metaphysical) in the c
ity of Kolkota. The panel is bookended by Kevin Leomo’s new sonic piece, So
und space, based on a re-siting and rethinking of the German Klangraum, an
annual gathering of artists who participate in daily sharings of their work
. Kevin’s piece will return throughout the Symposium, but always in a diffe
rent form.
Re-Playi
ng Bodies and Gestures – Thursday 16 May, 9.30 – 14.15
This panel starts with a performance l
ecture by scholar, choreographer and dancer, Farah Saleh in which she think
s of how one can re-play an archive of lost Palestinian gestures. Artist Si
mon Starling and theatre maker Graham Eatough continue the theme by constru
cting a playful dialogue to reflect on a series of theatrical re-enactments
they have worked on together in past decade or so; and Lee Hassall perform
s a strange, ekphrastic hommage to Dorothy Wordsworth’s 1803 text, Recollec
tions of a Tour Through Scotland.
Re-Playing Beckett – Thursday 16 May, 15.00- 18.00
This panel investigates the
perennial appeal that Samuel Beckett has for contemporary visual artists a
nd film-makers. Gerard Byrne premieres a new work based on Beckett’s plays,
Conor Carville provides a critical introduction to Beckett’s relationship
with visual art, and Sarah Browne reflects on how Beckett’s texts can be re
purposed for non-neurotypical modes of sensing with reference to her public
art project Echo’s Bones.
Re-Playing the City – Friday 17 May, 9.30-12.30
This panel asks what does it mean to
re-play a city? The architect-artists delafontainetneil respond to the prov
ocation by creating a short, time-lapse film in which two very different im
ages of Paris are juxtaposed in the single time-space of the screen. By con
trast, Minty Donald and Nick Millar seek to re-play the city of Glasgow by
encouraging participants to engage in a process of ‘re-scoring’, a method b
ased on the performance ‘scores’ of avant-garde practitioners from the 1950
s onwards.
Re-Playi
ng Dance – Friday 17 May, 14.30 – 16.00
This panel consists of two dance performances that en
gage with the idea of re-playing in different ways. Ashanti Harris extracts
a segment from her dance work Dancing a Peripheral Quadrille for the physi
cal space of the CCA and in the premiere of Jellyselfish, the Marseille-bas
ed company Dodescaden re-work their previous re-rendering of Jean Rouch’s 1
955 film Les Maîtres Fous.
Re-playing the Re-play – Saturday, 18 May, 9.30 – 13.00
This panel starts with a perf
ormance lecture by French artist Vincent Rioux, which meditates on the func
tion of entropy in In Absensia, a previous collaboration with La Compagnie
Dodescaden. Rioux’s ‘re-playing of a re-play’ is continued in a specially c
urated discussion led by the organisers in which all participants (artists
and audience) in the ‘Re-Play It Again’ symposium are invited to return to
any theme or image that enthused them and to re-play it in present time. Th
e panel ends with Kevin’s Leomo’s sonic score.Cinema Film Loop – 16 and 17 May
There will be a selection of films pla
ying on loop in cinema on 16 and 17 May. These are free.
;
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The Re-playing It Again symposium is
the culmination of a 4 year research project led by Baptiste Buob, Christop
he Triau, Carl Lavery and Nathalie Cau and is part of a larger Labex resear
ch programme, Les Passés dans le présent :
These are some of the questions
that this symposium looks to investigate at a time when there is so much c
lamour from progressive thinkers and activists to abandon the past and imag
ine the future, to leap beyond the nightmare of the long twentieth century
– the one that seems so impossible to exit, that weights on the minds of th
e living like a tumour. But what if the future was already in the past, lur
king radioactively in roads not taken, in failed appointments and missed op
portunities? Perhaps artists, of all people, are the ones most keenly attun
ed to this disjunction, aware, as they often are, that there is nothing new
under the sun, that everything is a recycling of something else.
If this is the case, then it seems c
rucial to explore how contemporary artists engage with the idea of re-playi
ng, talking with them about their practices, experimenting with their diver
se findings. The artists and thinkers in the symposium have little truck wi
th modernist and colonialist notions of ‘originality’ – a kind of scorched
earth policy, a spurious, imperialist venture into terra nullius. Instead,
they look to re-play the past, stopping and stilling it, so that new possib
ilities can emerge from the ‘shock of the old’. In this ethics of ruin, thi
s politics of abandonment, it may become possible to reconfigure how we ‘do
’ the present so as to contest the progress myths of modernity and imperial
ism. This would be a perverse and playful mode of contestation that moves f
orward by going backwards. In this ‘tactics of the re-play’, one uncovers t
he power to resist all those reactionary notions of heritage and history th
at look to attribute everything to its proper time and place. And through t
hat – who knows? – it may even be possible to breathe new life into that mo
st seemingly defunct of all concepts: the idea of revolution, conceived now
as a geometric figure that, like a compass, creates the new by rotating ba
ck on itself, coming full circle.
Artists and thinkers who will be responding to these questions and s
howing work include Gerard Byrne, Delafontainetniel, La Compagnie Dodescade
n, Sarah Browne, Conor Carville, Minty Donald and Nick Millar, Graham Eatou
gh, Ashanti Harris, Luke Fowler, Lee Hassall, Emmanuel Grimaud, Kevin Leomo
, Sarah Neeley, Vincent Rioux, Farah Saleh, and Simon Starling.
Panel Descriptions
Replaying Lostness – Wed 15 May, 16.00- 21.00 (Cinema)<
br />
This panel explores the relationsh
ip between re-playing and film. Luke Fowler and Sarah Neely discuss Luke’s
film Being in a Place in the context of what it means to re-play an unmade
film project by Margaret Tait; and Emmanuel Grimaud investigates how film i
s able to re-play the ghosts and spectres of forgotten lives (historical an
d metaphysical) in the city of Kolkota. The panel is bookended by Kevin Leo
mo’s new sonic piece, Sound space, based on a re-siting and rethinking of t
he German Klangraum, an annual gathering of artists who participate in dail
y sharings of their work. Kevin’s piece will return throughout the Symposiu
m, but always in a different form.
Re-Playing Bodies and Gestures – Thursday 16 May, 9.30 – 14
.15
This panel sta
rts with a performance lecture by scholar, choreographer and dancer, Farah
Saleh in which she thinks of how one can re-play an archive of lost Palesti
nian gestures. Artist Simon Starling and theatre maker Graham Eatough conti
nue the theme by constructing a playful dialogue to reflect on a series of
theatrical re-enactments they have worked on together in past decade or so;
and Lee Hassall performs a strange, ekphrastic hommage to Dorothy Wordswor
th’s 1803 text, Recollections of a Tour Through Scotland.
Re-Playing Beckett – Thursday 16 May
, 15.00- 18.00
Thi
s panel investigates the perennial appeal that Samuel Beckett has for conte
mporary visual artists and film-makers. Gerard Byrne premieres a new work b
ased on Beckett’s plays, Conor Carville provides a critical introduction to
Beckett’s relationship with visual art, and Sarah Browne reflects on how B
eckett’s texts can be repurposed for non-neurotypical modes of sensing with
reference to her public art project Echo’s Bones.
This panel as
ks what does it mean to re-play a city? The architect-artists delafontainet
neil respond to the provocation by creating a short, time-lapse film in whi
ch two very different images of Paris are juxtaposed in the single time-spa
ce of the screen. By contrast, Minty Donald and Nick Millar seek to re-play
the city of Glasgow by encouraging participants to engage in a process of
‘re-scoring’, a method based on the performance ‘scores’ of avant-garde pra
ctitioners from the 1950s onwards.
Re-Playing Dance – Friday 17 May, 14.30 – 16.00
This panel consists of two da
nce performances that engage with the idea of re-playing in different ways.
Ashanti Harris extracts a segment from her dance work Dancing a Peripheral
Quadrille for the physical space of the CCA and in the premiere of Jellyse
lfish, the Marseille-based company Dodescaden re-work their previous re-ren
dering of Jean Rouch’s 1955 film Les Maîtres Fous.
This
panel starts with a performance lecture by French artist Vincent Rioux, whi
ch meditates on the function of entropy in In Absensia, a previous collabor
ation with La Compagnie Dodescaden. Rioux’s ‘re-playing of a re-play’ is co
ntinued in a specially curated discussion led by the organisers in which al
l participants (artists and audience) in the ‘Re-Play It Again’ symposium a
re invited to return to any theme or image that enthused them and to re-pla
y it in present time. The panel ends with Kevin’s Leomo’s sonic score.
Cinema Film Loop – 16 a
nd 17 May
There will be
a selection of films playing on loop in cinema on 16 and 17 May. These are
free.
DTSTAMP:20260629T130609 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Paris;VALUE=DATE:20240515 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Paris;VALUE=DATE:20240519 SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR