----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five Years, 66 Regents Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London E8 4QN
www.fiveyears.org.uk | info@fiveyears.org.uk
twitter.com/Fiveyearslondon
School of Calidity: Back to Deschooling
1-4 October as part of Artlicks
Close Encounters with the Threptikon:
A symposium around the soul of plants and us.
A group exhibitions and series of events exploring ideas around vegetal life, curated by Esther Planas.
A series of documentaries online playlist, performance lectures, field recordings and talks.
an accelerated project by Esther Planas', School of Calidity. Breathing with plants, talking and listening to plants and learning from plants. Closer Encounters of the Theptikon is a multidimensional symposia about the soul of plants and us. With a playlist of documentaries and talks online, field recordings of sound and film, live sound performances, long distance (via skipe) workshops, lectures and open talks. We will be exploring a series of works and ideas around vegetal life and its structural ways of being in the world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday 1 October
6.30pm
Esther Planas Balduz (with guest) introduces
Close Encounters with the Threptikon: A symposium around the soul of plants and us.
"What are plants telling us? We can feel them, their presence, their movement against the air, their response to us and our presence. The object of deep studies and explorations about their senses and sounds, (their movements and ways of communicating, their structural performances of survival and resistance) plants are there for us to relate, to learn, to listen, to breath with. After a series of years observing, interacting and documenting plants, trees, wild herbs in urban contexts and other improvised found gardens and plants organisations, I felt that time was ripe for a gathering of documents, events, ideas and conversations around the subject. Having collected all sorts of various references, I wanted to share it. The show is a work that expands research and activates its sources to a live dimension. We will be exploring a series of works and ideas around vegetal life and its structural ways of being in the world."
Esther Planas
Thursday 1 October
7pm
Federico Campagna performative philosophy talk
Magic and the Reconstruction of RealityCrises of imagination and of action are often traced back to all sorts of economic, political and cultural reasons. However, it is often the case that the roots of such crises stretch much deeper than that, down to a crisis of our understanding and perception of reality itself – and of our presence within it. A crisis of reality occurs when ‘everything becomes everything’ – as the anthropologist Ernesto de Martino puts it – and ‘nothingness emerges’.
When such radical nihilism emerges – paralysing all possible action and imagination, while relegating any attempt at struggling for emancipation to the realm of psychopathological phantasies – a reconstruction of reality itself becomes necessary before anything else returns to be possible. As de Martino claims, this is the work and the aim of magic. In this talk, I will claim that this is also the aim and work of philosophy, and the first step for the reconstruction of emancipatory politics in the present age.
Federico Campagna is a Sicilian philosopher based in London. His current work revolves mainly around the ontological and ethical challenges posed by contemporary nihilism, and the possibility of a fundamental philosophical architecture of emancipation. His latest book ‘The Last Night: antiwork, atheism, adventure’, was published by Zero Books in 2013. He has discussed his work at institutions such as Serpentine Gallery (London), Documenta 13 (Kassel), MACBA (Barcelona), Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan), and on publications such as The White Review, E.R.O.S. Journal, Anarchist Studies Journal, Adbusters, The New Humanist, The Guardian, Corriere della Sera, Alfabeta2. He currently works at Verso Books and is a PhD candidate in Design Interactions at the RCA, London.
Website federicocampagna.eu
Through Europe th-rough.eu/writers/federico-campagna
Campagna, Federico (2013) The Last Night: Anti-Work, Atheism, Adventure, London: Zero Books Through Europe th-rough.eu/
8pm
opening /drinks and dance with plants
Saturday 3 October
2pm
Accelerated Workshop live via Skipe with artist José Jimenez Ortiz:
Vegetales and Morphogenetics
Observing the structure of a vegetal analysing different aspects of morphology, body and its traces : its algorithm, fractal and evolution.
José Jiménez Ortiz (Torreón, 1980)
Studied sociology at UAdeC. His work has been shown in museums in Mexico, Brazil, USA, Finland, Germany, Spain and Holland. He represented Mexico at the VII Mercosul Biennale in Brazil. He has received grants from the FONCA Program for young creators in 2008, 2010 and 2013; from the Bancomer-MACG Contemporary art program in 2010; from the FONCA-CONACYT program for residencies abroad in 2011; from the residencies program of the Kunstiftung Baden Württemberg in 2012; the program for the support of production and research in art in media from the CNA-Centro Multimedia in 2012; and the residencies program from Ars Flora+Natura in Colombia in 2015. He has held a production residency at the Museo Experimental El Eco (México, 2010); at the Kunstiftung Baden Württember (Germany, 2012); and the Volusian Institute of Pataphysics and Psychogeographycs Arts (Brazil, 2012). He is columnist at the newspaper Milenio, winner on two ocassions of the Cultural Journalism Prize. He is the autor of “Algorithms, fear and social change”, book edited in 2014 by CONACULTA and the UNAM.4pm
Performance Lecture by Esther Planas and screenings of a series of field recordings/ sound and moving image, about sensing plants and recording their messages and movements.
Esther Planas, Barcelona, 1960. Lives in London. Studied Contemporary Dance at The London Contemporary Dance School (The Place) London, El Institut del Teatre Barcelona and at Area Spai de Dansa, Barcelona between 1978/1996.Published V.O. magazine,1984 /5 Barcelona/Spain.Founder Member of artist cooperative Five Years, London 1998/2015 Member Scientific Committee at Eme3 Architecture Festival Barcelona 2011/2015 Currently doing a Masters in Research (MRes on Theory of Art and Philosophy) at Central Saint Martins. Awarded The Trask Foundation Bursary 2014/2015 Member of the 2014/15 LUX Critical Forum hosted at LUX, Artist Moving Image, London. Nominated for the 20th Paul Hamlyn Foundation Art Awards 2014 Selected for: 8 Performance Festival of Cali, Helena Producciones, Cali, Colombia 2012Selected for: BCNProducció/10 Barcelona 2010
estherplanas.com | threptikon.tumblr.com/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday 4 October
1 - 6pm3pm
Open conversation with MRes Art,Theory and Philosophy year2 on issues around Soul
and Spirit and the Threptikon.
talkingasaction.tumblr.com/
Friday 2 October
1 - 6pmTo confirm a series of interventions and playing of records films etc etc plus photocopy actions.
Behind the X / Tuesday 029
Behind the X is a publication research studio, living classroom, and collaborative platform where curiosity and relationships serve as inspiration in the pursuits of cultural production through publishing artists’ Publications and printed ephemera.
Recent Publication Studio London (poster) Raven Row, 6 February
:ndex Art Book Fair, Zona Maco, Mexico City, 4–8 February
Praise of Laziness, Trade Gallery, Nottingham, 1 November–13 December
:ndex Art Book Fair, Guadalajara, Mexico, 27 November–1 December
3LW, Rochelle School, 22 November Los Angeles 2019, Edge of Human, 13–20 November
Performance as Publishing presents: NY Art Book Fair, MoMA Ps1, New York
Bookplates for The Wysing Grange Farmhouse Library, 13 September–ongoing
Asymmetric Dance Class at Vitrine, 5–27 September
Behind the X at: Space Time: The Future Wysing Arts Centre, 30 August----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday 3 October
1 - 6pm1pm
Live You tube screening of Michael Marder talking about his philosophy of plants.
Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, working in the fields of phenomenology, environmental philosophy, and political thought.