WALKING WITH THE ENEMY: AFFIRMATION AS SUBVERSION IN THE (POST)SOCIALIST, POSTMODERN, AND POST-TRUTH ERAS

ViZ Laboratory for Visual Culture

WALKING WITH THE ENEMY: AFFIRMATION AS SUBVERSION IN THE (POST)SOCIALIST, POSTMODERN, AND POST-TRUTH ERAS

ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

Friday, November 20, 2020 at 6 PM UTC+02

Follow the link to register and attend the symposium:

https://form.jotform.com/203093359428358

This symposium attempts to address art practices that have embraced mimicry rather than opposition as a subversive political strategy. Going by the names of “overidentification,” “subversive affirmation,” or “exacerbated mimesis,” this tactic appropriates both the spectacle and stereotypes of socio-political power and by doing so exposes its animus, contradictions, and will to power. These modes of artistic engagement have strong associations with the ideological regimes of late socialism, but this kind of “walking with the enemy” has become one of the key artistic responses (both a symptom and counter-offensive) to our own era of ideological confusion and authoritarian resurgence.

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Organized by Gediminas Gasparavičius, Kostis Stafylakis, Maia Toteva, and Tom Williams

Presented by Viz Laboratory for Visual Culture (Athens) and Onassis Foundation (Athens)