Political Animal
Art Writing Constructing—The Contemporary City

Political Animal is a gathering focused on the phenomenon of the Contemporary City.

The Leverhulme International Network of Contemporary Studies (LINCS), together with Glasgow School of Art, the Centre for the Contemporary Arts (CCA) and The Drouth, have invited a collection of international artists, writers, performers, academics, musicians and activists from all over the globe to come together between the 21st & 24th of June 2018. The participants will share their politicised practices. Together they will explore how the contemporary city can be written through curating, performing, building. The device of the ‘assembly’ will be a principle vehicle of exploration in this gathering, and various questions will be addressed by the participants as art and cultural practitioners and as citizens:

What are the respective and interrelational roles of the collective and the individual in the operation of the contemporary city? Aristotle defined the human as the ‘political animal’ because humans rationalise, normalise and codify their social relations in a city (polis). Yet do all ‘civil’ practices participate in the rejection of the unconscious and instinctual urges that form the non-political aggregations of the mob, the pack and the herd? How does the body of the collective absorb and deploy or exclude the living body through art, the law, the word, the media?

There will be various forms of engagement­—conference/performances/exhibitions—all contained in two main arenas: a human assembly and an animal assembly. Instead of the usual closing remarks, the end of this event will take the shape of a BarCamp. BarCamp is an open, participatory workshop-event, the content of which is provided by the participants themselves. It is an intense event with discussions and interaction between attendees. Unlike the traditional conference format, BarCamps have a self-organizing character, relying on the passion and the responsibility of the participants.

We are looking for proposals from anyone who would like to attend the event and make use of the BarCamp. This could be a talk, a workshops or simply a paper to been made available during Political Animal. Any public activity led by individuals or groups who would like to contribute to meet to address the general public or communities would be welcome and supported by the Political within the limitation of our resources and financial capabilities. Please send proposals of 250 words (.pdf) to politicalanimal2018gmail.com by 12 February 2018.

The event is free. Lunch and refreshments are available for £15 per day, and accommodation is available for £264 per three nights. Both can be booked through the Political Animal organisation team (politicalanimal2018gmail.com).
The main sponsors of the event are the Leverhulme International Network of Contemporary Studies, Glasgow School of Art, the Centre for the Contemporary Arts, and The Drouth journal.

Participants include: Jasmina Cibic, Steve Davismoon, Fucking Good Art, Maria Fusco, Peter Geoghegan, Simon Kovesi, Mairi Lafferty, Francis McKee, Hannah McGill, Paola Merli, Prabhakar Pachpute, Nikos Papastergiadis, Andreas Phillipopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Alicja Rogalska, Lionel Ruffel, Mike Small, Jonas Staal, Ravi Sundaram, Andrew Tickell, Carol Yinghua Lu and many others.