Prosjektskolen

Prosjektskolen | Public presentation

Talk #1
Joanna Pope

“What am I supposed to do with this information? Problems of Aesthetics for Utopian Ecosocialism”

“… the speed w/which capitalism has stripped the socialist spirit and sentiment from various art/design movements in order to better monetize them is proof that art/design is never going to be a *particularly* useful weapon against capitalism” –@generalslug, Twitter, 03.12.19

It’s easy to claim that art, design, fiction and other imaginative practices can be powerful political tools for communicating utopian visions. But capitalism is clever, and things usually don’t go according to plan. Taking the ecosocialist movement of degrowth as a case study, this talk names and explains problems that arise when attempting to apply our artistic and imaginative abilities for utopian goals (the blueprint problem, the co-option problem and the elitism problem), and identifies one creative approach that might avoid these (the meme model).

Joanna Pope is a researcher with a focus on degrowth and ecocritical theory. She is based at Trust, an incubator for platform design and utopian conspiracy in Berlin. Joanna is a contributing editor at Uneven Earth, a journal and press for political ecology, and communications officer at Promoting Economic Pluralism, a London-based non-profit in the new economy movement. She is also a composer and producer. Her debut EP Fantasias for Lock-In was released on TT in 2019.
joannapope.blogspot.com

Talk #2
by Anonymous

I Am Chopping In A Room // chopped and screwed music - discussing DJ Screw’s technique in the context of academic music. I am chopping in a room similar to the one you are in now. I have chopped and screwed the compositions of institutionally celebrated artists and I am going to pillage their works with DJ Screw’s highly influential technique until you question which methods get to be considered valuable in the textbooks and which don’t so that any ambiguity on the genius and cultural significance of chopping and screwing is destroyed.

The public presentation are taken place within the framework of the exhibition and workshop program of Prosjektskolen, taken place in feldfünf until March 31. Prosjektskolen is an art school located in Oslo. It was founded in 2005 by Vilde von Krogh as an alternative preparatory school for higher education in contemporary art.