ART&RESEARCH

3) ‘The Infinite Demand of Art: a Symposium with Simon Critchley’. This symposium with the New York-based English philosopher, chaired by Christopher Fynsk (Centre for Modern Thought), was also part of the Gi festival and was organised by Glasgow School of Art in association with the Centre for Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen, and took place at the GFT, 26 April 2010. The symposium, extended the Gi theme of ‘Past, Present and Future’ to address the question of infinity with specific regard to Critchley’s concept of an infinite ethical demand addressed in his Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance (London: Verso, 2007), in which he claims: ‘Philosophy does not begin in an experience of wonder, as ancient tradition contends, but rather, I think, with the indeterminate but palpable sense that something desired has not been fulfilled, that a fantastic effort has failed. Philosophy begins in disappointment.’ (p. 1). It is this view which informs the title of Anders Gullestad's introduction to the philosopher which precedes his interview which was first published in Norwegian as ‘Skuffelsens Apostel’ in Vagant 1/2010 [http://www.vagant.no]. As we see in the playful and performative notes to ‘The Infinite Demand of Art’ - in which he discusses the work of French artist Phillipe Parreno in relation to mere being - and in the interview with Gullestad, Critchley’s philosophy is far from an acquiescence in defeatism and political nihilism, rather it is an embodiment of and call for an anarachic metapolitics which demands an ethical subjectivity and employs humour and poetry to confront and defeat the ‘motivational deficit’ manifest in contemporary public life. Crithley’s concepts of ethical subjectivity and political resistance in response to an infinite demand which exceeds the individual subject are pertinent to an understanding perhaps of the subversive practices of Bik Van der Pol but also of the activism evident in the work of Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham.

4) Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 16 April-3 May 2010 (Gi). Although anyone navigating the multiplicity of exhibitions, performances or symposia organized by or in association with Gi – including what appeared to be the spontaneous emergence of a festival ‘fringe’ – and listed on the festival publicity or website might be forgiven for concluding that the festival itself wasinfinite, the focus here is the three-month Production residency undertaken by the US artist Jimmie Durham at Glasgow Sculpture Studios and his related exhibition Universal Miniature Golf (The Promised Land) 17 April–4 September 2010 and the associated talks and events programme, which included ‘Urgent and Not So Urgent Possibilities’, a Friday Event lecture by the Brazilian-born artist Maria Thereza Alves organized by Glasgow School of Art (GFT 23 April 2010) - which all formed part of Gi2010. In her talk, Alves discussed her Seeds of Change project in which she has germinated long dormant seeds carried within the soil used as ballast of slave ships. A related work, Wake: A History of the Earth of Guangzhou (2008) commissioned for the Guangzhou Triennial 2008 and which depicts ‘Three Seed Carriers’ – Soon Ching-ling, Sun Yat-sen and their airplane - is presented here. Also here is Jimmie Durham’s Unter den Linden - a previously unpublished poem from 2006. The poem opens with the recollection of a poem – a poem within a poem – the memory of a poem recited by an old friend about an old Linden tree blown over in a storm some 70 years previously in the Swiss town of Saubraz and moves to a reflection on the qualities of the wood of the Linden tree (or Basswood) as ideal for use in the making of woodcuts and charcoal, a reflection interrupted by the question addressed to at the same time to all and to no-one in particular: ‘Could anyone draw lost forests?’ The interruption is not in the form of an invitation, but incantation: ‘O trees, forget our old sins, remember / Our old prayers.’

It may be premature to term these conferences, residencies, exhibitions and talks individually as ‘events’ - particularly in the context of the writings of Alain Badiou - but it is perhaps noteworthy that this issue brings together four separate but interrelated practices - ethics, politics, philosophy and art - where they might work collectively to form something akin to an event: for we may agree with Badiou that four is the number of an event.

Selected material from this issue of Art & Research will appear in English and in Spanish translation in a forthcoming edition of brumaria.