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Conference Announcement Theme: ZONES | out of place Type: Interdisciplinary Conference Institution: diffrakt: centre for theoretical periphery Location: Berlin (Germany) – Online Date: 12.–13.11.2021 __________________________________________________ Born out of the research group Zones: Topologies of Power co-organised by Jeanne Etelain at diffrakt, ZONES | out of place is a two-day programme set to bring together recent work from scholars, artists, and activists. Over the past decades, the category of place has been torn between, on the one hand, its erosion through the homogenising forces of globalised capitalism and, on the other hand, its retreat into the reactionary versions of rising nationalisms. Yet, from Special Economic Zones to Temporary Autonomous Zones, we witness the proliferation of new spatialities referred to as "zones" that seem to challenge both the smooth globe of networked capitalisms and the striated territories of sovereign states. While the zone seems to have become a basic category of contemporary experience, acquiring a political resonance, its potentialities and limits still remain unknown. Programme ZONES #1 | Nomos and Zone in the Post-Colony Friday, 12 November 2021, 3-6 pm diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery Workshop with Luke Collison Achille Mbembe’s critical adoption of certain concepts from Carl Schmitt’s works emerges from a parallel aim to unveil the hypocrisies of self-hagiography concomitant with the success of the liberal-political framework embodied in the “end of history”. In this workshop, through a series of readings and extracts drawn from Mbembe’s work and Schmitt’s infamous Nomos of the Earth, we will investigate the spatial themes of the Post-Colony: it’s zones, spaces, borders and territories as well as the logics of power through which they are derived. http://diffrakt.space/en/zones-1-nomos-and-zone-in-the-post-colony/ ZONES #2 | Speculative Fictions of the Zone Friday, 12 November 2021, 7.30 pm diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery Screening lecture with Jeanne Etelain The Zone is a figure of speculative fictions, of those imaginative stories, from fantasy to science-fiction, from fairy tales to indegenous myths, that include elements eluding accepted science or recorded history. We may name but a few: ancient legends about the Antipodes, Jean Cocteau’s Orphée, the TV series The Twilight Zone. The most famous one, however, might be Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 movie Stalker. People have largely interpreted the Zone in this film as either a political symbol for Stalin’s gulags, a forbidden desired territory akin to West Berlin, the sign of a coming techno-ecological catastrophe foreshadowing the Chernobyl disaster, or even the Lacanian void which sustains desire. But Tarkovsky was famously hostile to these kinds of interpretations: “People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolizes, and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject. I’m reduced to a state of fury and despair by such questions. The Zone doesn’t symbolize anything […]: the zone is the zone.” In this screening lecture, we will take Tarkvosky’s words for it and examine the Zone literally, that is as a mere portion of space whose nature – not meaning – needs to be clarified. http://diffrakt.space/en/zones-2-speculative-fictions-of-the-zone/ ZONES #3 | On Some Disturbing Functions of Space and Other Ideas Saturday, 13 November 2021, 4 pm online & diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery Conversation with Marina Camargo | Héctor Zamora This conversation between Marina Camargo and Héctor Zamora will approach ideas related to the latter’s artistic practice and how space is altered through his interventions, performances, installations, and site-specific works. Among Héctor Zamora’s most recent projects are “Strangler” (2021), made for the Triennial Bruges, and “Lattice Detour” (2020), a curved wall made of terracotta bricks, commissioned as a site-specific installation for the Metropolitan Museum’s rooftop in New York. http://diffrakt.space/en/zones-3-on-some-disturbing-functions-of-space-and-other-ideas/ ZONES #4 | Terror Nullius Saturday, 13 November 2021, 7.30 pm diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery Film by Soda_Jerk This revenge fable offers an un-writing of Australian national mythology. As a radical critique of Australian masculinity, refugee policy and the treatment of Indigenous Australians it works entirely within and against the official archive, using scraps of Australian cinema and archival footage in order to achieve a queering and othering of Australian cinema. Part political satire, eco-horror and road movie, Terror Nullius is a world in which idyllic beaches host race-riots, governments poll love-rights, and the perils of hypermasculinity are overshadowed only by the enduring horror of Australia’s colonising myth of terra nullius. http://diffrakt.space/en/zones-4-terror-nullius/ Covid Pandemic The event is (partly) an in-person event and the number of participants thus, in accordance with current COVID-19 regulations, strictly limited. Following the 2G rule, masks will not be required, but all attendees will have to present either proof of vaccination or proof of recent recovery. The room is equipped with air filtration devices, but given the dynamic situation, we would also like to ask you, if possible, to test yourselves with a rapid test ahead of the event. Location diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery Crellestraße 22, 10827 Berlin Registration To register for any of the following sessions, please send a brief message noting which sessions you would like to attend: mail@diffrakt.space __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: https://interphil.polylog.org InterPhil List Archive: https://www.mail-archive.com/interphil@list.polylog.org/ __________________________________________________
