Out of Space:
Erratic Cultural Practices in Illegitimate Locations
Concept: Christiane Brosius, Laila Abu-Er-Rub & Holger Schulze
A Cooperation between the Centre for Transcultural Studies
at the Heidelberg University
with the Sound Studies Lab
at the University of Copenhagen
Location
Multisal 21.0.54
Department of Arts & Cultural Studies
University of Copenhagen
Karin Blixensvej 1
2300 Copenhagen
Time
21.6.: 2pm-7pm
22.6.: 10am-7pm
Conference schedule
Please register
Concept
What locations allow for the emergence of new – often erratic – cultural practices? And vice versa: how and when do cultural practices constitute locations, and how do we make sense of this if such creative topographies are deemed as sites of illegitimacy by some? How can we pay adequate attention to such “queer” spaces and shape conceptual and methodological sensoria that register vernacular, demotic or peripheral fabrics of urbanism? For instance: Can we listen to protest spaces of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong? How legitimate are all-inclusive resorts in countries that are struck with revolutions and economic uncertainty? What interstitial locations for courageous artistic performances can we trace in early modern Rome or in contemporary Kathmandu? What urban void does a Taco Truck in the USA navigate and what sounds and perceptions may constitute the legitimacy of a kitchen?
This conference brings together Sound Studies, Sensory Ethnography and Media Anthropology in order to explore these questions with researchers from a wide range of disciplines and regional expertise. They shed light on new sensory, visual and gustatory practices in urban spaces (“Food Emplacements”); they broaden the realm of art activism, aesthetics and their relevance for vernacular space-making (“Artistic Spatialities & Identities”), and they explore contemporary border regimes on fringes, frontiers and nodal points of societies (“Borders & Mobilities”, “Subversive and Alternative (Urban) Spaces”).
Such an assemblage of research on sounds, tastes and images, their sensoria, imagery, resonances and spatialities, requires different critical and self-reflexive ‘think-spaces’ (Aby Warburg’s “Denkraum”). We have chosen therefore to invite contributions that range from “classic” papers, to more experimental explorations of thought and matter, such as audio papers or performative papers. We hope that the location at the University of Copenhagen, where this symposion takes place, might open up – here and there – such a think-space for the illegitimate and erratic.