TALK
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Based on Real Facts: The Aesthetics of Journalism, 2011
talk, seminar, debate
[View Video]
Over the past six years Alfredo Cramerotti has written about the aesthetic merger of contemporary art and the news media. Drawing from his book Aesthetic Journalism: How to inform without informing (2009, Intellect), Cramerotti provocatively advances the idea that art and journalism are not separate forms of communication, but rather two sides of a unique activity , the production and distribution of images and information.
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As aesthetic regimes, both journalism and artistic makes claims for the truth, albeit of a different kind. One is a coded system that speaks for the truth (or so it claims), the other a set of activities that questions itself at every step (or so it claims), thus making truth. Whereas journalism provides a view on the world ‘out there,’ as it ‘really’ is, art often presents a view on the view, truth posited as acts of (self)reflection. Cramerotti will examine both as a types of truth production, as systems of information that defines truth in terms of the visible: producing not only what can be seen, but also what can be imagined, and thus imaged. As such, we start to get closer to the core of reality itself when we make our reality not a given, irreversible fact, but a possibility among many others.
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The talk generated a principal question: is it possible to work with aesthetics and informatics, to be both reflective and precise? To both employ documentary techniques and journalistic methods while remaining self-reflecting and critical on those means? Ultimately, the artist’s work is not about delivering information but questioning it, reversing the tradition of both fields (art and journalism), to highlight both the aesthetic workings and trappings of reportage and the informational turn within current aesthetic production.
RFC Rapallo Fotografia Contemporanea, 2011
talk, seminar, debate (Italian only)
[View Video]
15 gennaio – 13 febbraio 2011
Antico Castello sul Mare, Rapallo, Italy
"Ritorno alla Fotografia": tavola rotonda 15 gennaio 2011
Villa Queirolo_Casa della Cultura, via Aurelia di Ponente, 1 Rapallo
“Ritorno alla Fotografia. Scelte e necessità nel dibattito contemporaneo” - partecipano Andrea Botto, Alfredo Cramerotti, Charlotte Dumas, Francesco Zanot
Art Expanded. From theory to practice, and back again., 2010
talk, seminar, debate
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Lecture at MA in Art and Media Practice in the University of Westminster.
Guest speaker: Alfredo Cramerotti, curator at QUAD, Derby, presents his art-as-research practice as curator of Manifesta 8 and author of the book Aesthetic Journalism How to Inform Without Informing (Intellect, 2009).
Session format: Visual Lecture. The author will give a lecture illustrated with images of the artworks of M8 and the book followed by Q&A
Abstract: ” My curatorial approach is not about creating new (artistic) knowledge but rather shifting existing modes of knowledge production and distribution. It implies entering a mutual relationship with other systems such as mass media, science, law, architecture or other areas, constantly shifting society’s perception of itself through non-artistic disciplines.
In my most recent curatorial project, the European biennial of contemporary art Manifesta 8, Region of Murcia, Spain, I opened up a space for artists to cross boundaries with the realm of media information and communication, a daunting terrain as opposed as the ‘safe’ environment of art. By creating new sequences of knowledge and generating what I regard as ‘aesthetic journalism’, artists and audiences alike become active participants of the curatorial concept since they become a part of the information chain, of the sequence of knowledge.
The talk will investigate this approach, from the development of the concept to its practical implementation, and will open up to the audience to discuss how hybrid practices – think about biopolitics, sustainable development, experiential reality and other processes that are the sum of different parts of ‘set’ disciplines- are re-constituting us and our world on a daily basis.”
Curators and facts. How curatorial agency is inquiring states of affair, 2010
talk, seminar, debate
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A conference organised by Vector - studio for art practices and debates (the critical research platform of Vector Association) and the Art History and Theory Department (Faculty of Fine Arts, Decorative Arts and Design, Iasi, Romania)
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Supported by:
Austrian Cultural Forum
British Council, Iaşi
French Cultural Center, Iaşi
University of Arts “George Enescu”, Iaşi
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Participants:
1. Cătălin Gheorghe
moderator; university lecturer, curator and editor, Vector Studio and University of Arts, Iasi (periferic.org/studio.html)
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2. MÉLANIE BOUTELOUP (France)
director of Bétonsalon - a multidisciplinary art and research centre in Paris (betonsalon.net) and coordinator in France of the global project "The Public School" (paris.ecolepublique.org/about).
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3. KATHRIN RHOMBERG (Austria)
curator of the 6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (what is waiting out there) in 2010 [bb6.berlinbiennale.de/], co-curator of Former West project (BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht) [formerwest.org/], and an advisor and corresponding member of Secession, Vienna.
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4. ALFREDO CRAMEROTTI (United Kingdom)
co-curator (as Chamber of Public Secrets) of Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art (Murcia & Cartagena, Spain, 2010-2011) [manifesta8.com/manifesta/manifesta8.cps_en and cpsman8.wordpress.com], curator at QUAD Centre for Art, Media and Film in Derby, editor of Critical Photography at Intellect Books, Bristol, UK and Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. [alcramer.net].
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In the last 10 years, in Iasi, an urban center with universitarian and cultural tradition in Romania, there was a process to build the foundations for a critical contemporary art scene, interested both in the promotion of the emergent and professional artists, and in the connections with a contemporary art network from Central, South-Eastern, Nordic and Western Europe.
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These new tendencies for promoting and articulating the importance and relevance of the new media and the research with art criticism and theory tool-boxes for improving the understanding, insights, knowledge and instrumentalisation of the contemporary visual culture could contribute to a professional upheaval in visual arts, an increased visibility of the local art scene, a reinforcement of the partnerships between local cultural institutions and a connection of the local initiatives in the critical research and production of the visual culture with similar initiatives from European countries, by exchanging ideas and cultural practices with a direct social and professional impact.
University of Derby Wednesday Lectures: Alfredo Cramerotti, 2010
talk, seminar, debate
27th October 2010
Alfredo Cramerotti
Auditorium 4, 2pm
Alfredo is an author and curator based in the UK. His practice explores the relationship between reality and its narratives across a variety of media and collaborations. He holds a MA in Art in Context from UdK Berlin (Germany), has studied in the Critical Studies Program at the Malmö Academy-Lund University (Sweden) and Fellow Theory and Art Criticism at the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen Innsbruck (Austria). He is currently Auditor c/k Curatorial/Knowledge PhD programme at Goldsmiths College University of London.
Co-curator (as CPS), Manifesta 8 European Biennial of Contemporary Art; Curator, QUAD Derby; Co-curator of the collectives CPS Chamber of Public Secrets and AGM Culture; Editor, Critical Photography book series at Intellect Books. Previously he has co-curated the festival of citizen journalism “Made in Video,” Copenhagen, the television formats LAPTALK and CPS for tv-tv Copenhagen, and numerous radio programs and art exhibitions.
He has lectured internationally and published among others in Brumaria, Nolens Volens, Manifesta Journal, MOLE, Esse Arts+Opinions, Altyazi, Journal of Media Cultural Politics and Pages Magazine. Recent publications include authoring the book Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform without Informing (2009), and editing Unmapping the City: Perspectives of Flatness (2010), The Blind, Contingency in Madagascar and Landscape and Politics (all 2011). Web: www.alcramer.net