Ignite is a high-energy evening of 5-minute talks by people who have an idea - and the guts to get on stage and share it. Run by local volunteers, Ignite London is a force for raising the collective IQ and building connections in our city.
The Aeolian Hall, June 12th, 2013
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The next instalment of Ignite is Wednesday, March 13. We’re happy to announce over a dozen brave souls will be sharing their brilliance with you. The speakers for Ignite VIII are: Gary Brown – Municipal solar investment James Bullbrook – Star Wars Bradley Corbett – Parental alienation Hannah Dalgleish – Chisolme House Karen Hebert – 1600% Profit [...]
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What is an Ignite Challenge? In the hour before the speakers take the stage, you’re invited to join us to take part in something much more participatory than just watching great presentations. It’s the Ignite Challenge: a chance to put your brains together with fellow audience members and do something completely different. You can think of [...]
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Ignite London VII is approaching rapidly and slide decks are being prepared diligently. In no particular order, you can look forward to speakers including: Host of LDNONTTV and Twitten Inventor, Lincoln McCardle. SOHO Community Association President, Tanya Park Chris Moss Cycle Tourist and Library aficionado Dave Mitchell Long Exposure Photograher, Zeth Williams Game Changing Gamer, Mathew Hoy Growing [...]
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Kadie Ward is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the London Economic Development Corporation. When she’s not busy thinking about how to build concrete jungles, she’s swinging from iron in a jungle gym.
This is uncanny in its proximity to fascist ideology: society as an organic unity that reconciles all otherwise contradictory or antagonistic elements, or as Kadie puts it: “each part or stakeholder is working toward the success of the whole.” It is well known to art historians that in the Italian fascist art movement known as “Futurism,” the robust (male) body functioned as an emblem of a well ordered state. Or, the vitality of the body was even directly identified with the vitality of a larger social whole. (Umberto Boccioni’s painting “The Dynamism of a Soccer Player” is a good example).
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri put it this way (Commonwealth, page 33): “Nationalist fundamentalisms [ie. fascism]…concentrate on bodies through their attention to and care for the population. The nationalist policies deploy a wide range of techniques for corporeal health and welfare, analyzing birthrates and sanitation, nutrition and housing, disease control and reproductive practices. Bodies themselves constitute the nation, and thus the nation’s highest goal is their promotion and preservation. Like religious fundamentalisms, however, nationalisms, although their gaze seems to focus intently on bodies, really see them merely as an indication or symptom of the ultimate, transcendent object of national identity.” Ie. particular bodies disappear from view so as to reveal a “national spirit.”
Anyway, this whole presentation is very confused politically and aesthetically. The content is fascist, but formally (other than the pictures of Arnold as ideal form) it seems to be drawing on the legacy of Constructivism – which was an early Soviet art movement situated in an entirely different ideological milieu.
Patrick, interesting read on my presentation! It’s difficult to explain an idea in 5 minutes so maybe I can clarify some ambiguities for you. My intent is twofold: to reconsider the way we build cities and the way we engage the community and manage projects for city growth. I’m not arguing that the city is a body explicitly (as you note fascist ideology would espouse), but rather, that we should manage community/political projects like we would “manage” a body.
This notion is informed by recent research on the “economic gardening” approach to cities that argues for an “ecosystems” approach to building cities – that is, understanding the city as a set of interconnected relationships. This idea isn’t entirely new to economic development: Jane Jacobs was a significant proponent for this mode of city development with her “web way” of thinking about cities. You can read a bit about her here: http://www.pps.org/jjacobs-2/ . Considering the city as an interconnected set of relationships does not strip away difference, but rather difference is incorporated in the city by its very constitution. In fact, engagement of and listening to all of the different “parts” that constitute a city are vital to its functioning, as a opposed to taking direction from a central office (which is unfortunately often the case).
In terms of the aesthetic of the presentation, I am quite familiar with Futurism and Constructivism and I purposefully designed my presentation with their influence. In part because of the contrast – so glad you picked that up! I certainly was not trying to “re-imagine art as tool for the manipulating our shared ideological terrain” as you so aptly describe your art.
Overall, the presentation is meant to spark discussion on the way we build cities and engage all of the stakeholders. Ignite is a great forum to get the conversation started.