4 keynotes, 8 panels, 75 face2face discussions, 7 walks, 1 film

How does the urban society of today build the culture of tomorrow? Which
role does the performative practice play in the development of an urban
mode of life? Which choreographies of daily life does the city produce?
Can we create collective memory by artistic means? How can the city as a
storage medium be used as a chamber for the visionary - and feed in
sustainable knowledge/practice? How can performative practice help?

These are some of the questions raised by the interdisciplinary
conference performaCITY, which takes place from June 12 to 14, 2014 at
the Kaserne Basel and in the urban space of Basel. In various panels,
keynotes, face-to-face talks and discussions, performaCITY will examine
the reciprocal relationship of performative, artistic practice and the
built-up, vibrant city, particularly in regard to the production of a
future urban culture. We understand the city as a major producer of a
future society's collective, cultural memory, and the performative
practice as an important catalyst for this process.

The conference will be based on an interdisciplinary approach that
brings together renown thinkers, scholars, artists and practitioners
from around the world: Aleida Assmann (cultural studies, Konstanz), Knut
Ebeling (philosopher, Berlin), Erdem Gündüz (choreographer, Istanbul),
Ant Hampton (theater maker, London), Jen Harvie (performance studies,
London), Gabriele Klein (sociologist of movement, Hamburg), LIGNA
(artist collective, Hamburg), Stefanie Lorey (theater studies, Hamburg),
David Pinder (urban and cultural geographer, London), Saskia Sassen
(sociologist, New York), Dries Verhoeven (director, Utrecht), Sophie
Wolfrum (urbanist, München), zURBS (socio-artistic laboratory, Zürich) …
and many more.


PROGRAM

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Artistic Productions

09:00 - 20:00
"stadtARCHIV" (zURBS), Rossstall II Kaserne Basel

15:00 - 20:00
"Ceci n'est pas..." (Dries Verhoeven), Claraplatz

15:00 - 18:00
"Urban Memories" (Dangel/Elias), Download app;"urban memories" between
june 10 to 14

17:00 - 18:00
"Walking the City" (LIGNA), starting point: Unternehmen Mitte

21:00
"Saving the World" (Gob Squad), Reithalle, Kaserne

Conference

18:30 - 20:00
Opening keynote: Aleida Assmann, Reithalle Kaserne Basel
Welcome by Imanuel Schipper (curator) and Carena Schlewitt (director
Kaserne Basel)


Friday, 13 June 2014

Artistic Productions

09:00 - 20:00
"stadtARCHIV" (zURBS), Rossstall II Kaserne

15:30 - 19:00 "werkSTADT" (zURBS), starting point: Aktienmühle

15:00 - 20:00
"Ceci n'est pas..." (Dries Verhoeven), Claraplatz

17:00 - 18:00
"Walking the City" (Ligna), starting point: Unternehmen Mitte

18:00 - 19:30
"The Human Scale", Swiss premiere


Conference

10:00 - 11:00
Keynote Imanuel Schipper: "City as Performance", Aktienmühle

Session I: City and Performative Practice

11:00 - 13:00
Panel 1: "Performance, Ritual and Urban Culture"
Heinz Schütz, D.J. Hopkins, Klaus-Peter Köpping (Aktienmühle)

11:30 - 13:30
Panel 2: "Architecture and Bodies. First we Shape the City, and then the
City Shapes us"
Kirsten Wagner, Stephan Trüby, Frank Eckhardt (Ostquai)

Panel 3: "Bodies for Change / Embodying Change"
Sune Haugbolle, Yvonne Hardt, Erdem Gündüz (H95)

14:00 - 15:15 LUNCH (Aktienmühle)


Session II: Archive - Memory - Cultural Memory

15:30 - 17:30
Panel 4: "Historical Images of the Urban in a Global Context"
Martino Stierli, Mechtild Widrich, Ijlal Muzaffar, Katrin Grögel
(Aktienmühle)

Panel 5: "Performative Practice as Aesthetics of Revealing: the City as
an Archive?"
Knut Ebeling, Barbara Clausen, Stefanie Lorey (Ostquai)

20:00 DINNER (Landestelle)


Saturday, 14 June 2014

Artistic Productions

09:00 - 20:00
"stadtARCHIV" (zURBS), Rossstall II

13:30 - 14:30
"Walking the City" (LIGNA), starting point: Unternehmen Mitte

14:15 - 14:30
"Rupture: PerformaVILLAGE" (Le Clübli Déserteurs), Rossstall II

14:30 - 16:30
Games curated by Daniela Kuka, Rossstall II

15:00 - 20:00
"Ceci n'est pas..." (Dries Verhoeven), Claraplatz

21:00
"Saving the World" (Gob Squad), Reithalle


Conference

Session III: Performing the Future Urban

10:00 - 12:00
Panel 6: "Urban Paradise. Chamber of Reality - Chamber of Visionaries"
Sigrid Merx, Daniela Kuka, Sophie Wolfrum (Reithalle)

Panel 7: "Art as a Producer of Knowledge About the City"
Celina Kress, Karen van den Berg, Gabriele Klein, Julia Lossau
(Rossstall I)

Panel 8: "Performing Utopian Visions"
Elke Krasny, David Pinder, Jen Harvie, Caleb Johnston (Rossstall II)

12:00 - 13:00 Keynote by Saskia Sassen (Reithalle)

13:00 - 14:15 LUNCH (Kaserne)

14:30 - 16:30
face2face Sessions (Reithalle)

17:00 - 18:00
Keynote Harald Welzer
"Das Zukünftige als Spiegelung von Erinnerung" (Rossstall I)

18:15 - 19:15
Final podium "Which City do we want to have lived in?" (Rossstall I)


The conference takes place in the overall frame of the festival
performaCITY (June 6 to June 15, 2014 / Kaserne Basel and urban space of
Basel), which also includes artistic/performative interventions in
public space and communication in the form of performative walks and
socio-artistic activities.

Three artistic interventions from the European theatre network SECOND
CITIES - PERFORMING CITIES (Dries Verhoeven: "Ceci n‘est pas …", LIGNA:
"Walking the City", Ant Hampton: "A voice - lest we see where we are")
will be performed in the urban space, and the production "Saving the
World" by the German-British performance group Gob Squad will be
presented in the Kaserne.

Socio-artistic activities will accompaign performaCITY with a series of
workshops and an audiowalk that engages the residents of Basel and the
audience in the making of an alternative city archive that experiments
with ways to trace, document and (re)present the lived experiences of
the present in order to build visions and ideas of shared futures.
Registration, Programme & information: www.performacity.net
Contact: infotrans4mator.net

Conference Pass - regular: 45 CHF
Conference Pass - Student: 25 CHF

Curated by trans4mator (Concept: Imanuel Schipper, Johanna Dangel;
Organisation: Christiane Dankbar). Partners & Supporters: performaCITY
is a part of "Performing Cities", an European production network of
"second cities" and their performance production centres in Germany
(Dresden, Mülheim/Ruhr), France (Poitiers, Strasbourg), the Netherlands
(Utrecht) and Poland (Krakow).

performaCITY is part of "Shared Space Switzerland" the Swiss preliminary
programme for the Prague Quadrennial 2015 that is organized by the Swiss
Arts Council Pro Helvetia in collaboration with the Festival Antigel
Geneva, trans4mator Zurich and Haus der Kunst, Uri.
performaCITY is a part of the SharedSpace project in cooperation with
the Prague Quadrennial 2015.

"eikones - NCCR Iconic Criticism" of the University of Basel is partner
of the conference.

The performaCITY conference is supported by the Swiss National Science
Foundation SNSF.

"Performing Cities" and "Shared Space" are supported by the Culture
Programme of the European Union.