Research Catalogue

In a project that draws to mind Cildo Meireles' Insertions into Ideological Circuits, this research does not represent politics or political struggle but seeks to live it. The neo-liberal variant of education wherein the university has become a privatized factory or machine (Raunig) is troubled by the authors artistic interventions in London universities. The researcher develops three critical artistic interventions with student collaborators to reawaken the Enlightenment University. Through militant research consisting of polemical text to engender thought and dialogue among students and staff, visual questionnaires encouraging participants to reflect upon the system and their fear or mistrust of the foreign or the other and a citizen newspaper freely distributed to impact consciousness on us and them, the researcher is doing politics through art to penetrate subjectivities, instigate dialogue and ultimately affect change.

The three interventions function as exemplary manifestations of the traditional conception of the university in the post enlightenment period as a site to acquire knowledge, critique power, engender agency and empowerment. These methods of 'reterritorialization,' that being resistance to subservience within the system (after Raunig and Deleuze) are successful in that they function as negations of the status quo and indeed provide examples to students of what the university can be and their place within this constellation. The author problematises Raunigs definition of the university as a rigid factory, pointing to the flows of dialogue and contradictions throughout and within the people and system. The interventions function as insertions into the discourse of UK universities at this specific time where university and border agency conflate; they resist while residing within, asking us what is other, who are we and who are they and what are we all here to do? Ultimately, they celebrate and embody the Enlightenment ideals of questioning; they unabashedly hold to equality and provide lived experience for students and staff of the real function of critical thinking and artistic investigation in the 21st century University.

No Jury No Prize 2013 London Street Gallery catalogue - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82172642/No%20Jury%20No%20Prize%20catalogue%202013.pdf

No Jury No Prize 2014 Artlink call:

 http://www.artlink.ie/events/no-jury-no-prize-2014

Dear Emma and Matthew,

Greatly apprecaie your close reading and concise analysis - here is a film that I produced last year that addresses much of that which the paper and your comments discuss - http://vimeo.com/65688477

Interesting Matthew that you mention Warhol - he formed the beginning of the film - indeed he really sought and did negate authorship in his Factory days - before fully embracing the market and making money as art. The world of collections and auctions are of course deeply troubled by authentication of his and others work - whereas that deemed postmodern strove to problematise authenticity, genius and originality - the logical extension of which may be that we are all artists.

Following yet hopefully somewhat in tandem with the reflections upon self negation and fostering egalitarianism in and or through art is the discussion on Adorno, non-identity and the (im)possibility of  such an art. I concede that this is in danger of slipping down a rabbit hole of perpetual confusion but it was developed to push forward the project of self negation and held to as a general tool to avoid overidentification with one set belief or institution while holding to a general ethical foundation or principle - I will further reflect upon this in relation to the general intellect, collectivity, net production, juryless exhibitions, anonymous creativity and (un)democratic organization in art and society. The research will hopefully be developed upon throughout the year - I will send you both some info on it. Thanks again for your time and thoughtful comments.

Rory