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The cultural exchange between Brazil and France over the centuries

Richard Meckien — 2013-06-12T14:35:00Z

IEA's Brazil-France Research Group will launch the book 'Cinco Séculos de Presença Francesa no Brasil: Invasões, Missões, Irrupções' (Five Centuries of French Presence in Brazil: Invasions, Quests, Outbursts - so far only published in Portuguese) on June 19 at the João Alexandre Barbosa bookstore, owned by Edusp and located inside Brasiliana library. Organized by Leyla Perrone-Moisés, a member of the group, the book deals with the relations between the two countries throughout history.

The 13 papers that comprise the work result from the series of conferences held by the group in 2009, within the official program of the Year of France in Brazil. The set outlines a broad overview of cultural exchange between Brazil and France from the points of view of literature, photography, music, history, anthropology, architecture, theater and visual arts.

Following the chronological order of the key moments of the relations between the two countries, the texts explore the reciprocal influences - initiated soon at the time of Brazil's discovery - from a historical perspective that goes from the 16th to the 20th century.

Among the episodes covered there are the two attempts of colonization undertaken by France in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Artistic Mission of 1816, when French artists have been invited by the court to establish the first school of arts in Brazil, the presence of French theater in Brazil in the 19th century, and the Brazilian influence in the avant-garde musical work of the French composer Darius Milhaud.

The last four texts extrapolate those five centuries and raise questions about recent artistic manifestations of France as well as propose a reflection on the supposed 'decline of French culture'. According to Perrone-Moisés, coordinator of the cycle that led to the book, 'these current references allow us to continue the dialogue with the letters and the arts of the country that has left such deep marks in our culture'.

Seminar moots the critical and empirical approach of digital culture

Richard Meckien — 2013-06-03T14:10:00Z

The possibilities of cross between critical theory and empirical research in the study of digital culture will be addressed at the seminar teoria crítica, cultura digital, cinema eXpandido (critical theory, digital culture, expanded cinema), that IEA will hold on June 7 at 3 pm in IEA's Event Room.

Coordinated by Massimo Canevacci, visiting Professor at IEA, the event will focus on the theoretical and methodological innovations that arise from this intersection with the cinema as the axis of discussion. Exhibitors will be Marília Mello Pisani, Professor at the Center for Natural Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), and Pedro Paulo Rocha, filmmaker and one of the founders of Rede Tranzmidias.

Pisani will exposure 'Cinema and Digital Culture: Considerations on Empirical Research in Critical Theory'. Building on the ideas of the philosophers Adorno, Benjamin, Kracauer and Marcuse (all members of the Frankfurt School) about cinema, the teacher will propose a combination of empirical research and critical theory to investigate subjectivity, art and politics in the context of digital culture.

Rocha will talk about 'Tranzcinemas and poetic flow'. In addition to displaying the work of his own on the subject, the filmmaker will discuss the new territories of art and new forms of subjectivity that emerge in network environments. The goal is to promote a reflection on critical theory in the digital era from the debate about cinema and about contemporary artistic performances.

Participants

Pisani is a Philosophy Professor at the Center for Natural Sciences and Humanities of UFABC. Master and PhD in Philosophy and Methodology of Science from the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), the researcher is engaged in the study of the work of Herbert Marcuse (1989-1979), the critical theory of society, technique and technology of philosophy, philosophy of psychoanalysis and teaching philosophy.

Rocha is a filmmaker, multimedia artist and researcher of transmedia and collaborative art. His works include video art, installations, sound art, sound design and assembly of films. He has established and participated in several artist collectives, among which the 'Rede Tranzmidias', which brings together artists from diverse backgrounds in order to explore the possibilities of transmedia communication through projects of art and culture.

Canevacci is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and of Digital Art and Culture at Università Degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Italy. His studies focus on ethnography, visual communication, art, and digital culture. The research he has been developing at IEA, situated among these themes, includes four main conceptual frameworks: self-representation, ubiquity, visual fetishism, and critical and experimental theory.

Art and hacktivism in debate

Richard Meckien — 2013-05-17T17:15:00Z

The intersections of artistic practices, hacking and economy are the theme of the meeting Interrupção em Rede: Repensando Oposições em Arte, Hacktivismo e Negócios da Rede Social (Interruption Network: Rethinking Oppositions in Art, Hacktivism and Social Network Business), to be held at IEA on May 23 at 3.00 pm in the Event Room.

The exhibitor will be the Italian researcher Tatiana Bazzichelli, who studies the relationship between artistic manifestations and the business of social media. The conference will be held in Italian with consecutive translation by Massimo Canevacci, visiting Professor at IEA.

At the event, Bazzichelli will talk about the conditions for hacker and artistic practices on Web 2.0 and how social networks can develop and incorporate these digital culture practices. Examples of network art and hacking in California and Europe that challenge the notions of power and hegemony will also be presented.

Bazzichelli is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Digital Media’s Innovation Incubator of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, and holds a PhD in Media Studies and Information from Aarhus University, Denmark. She is also a member of the curatorial team of Transmediale Festival Berlin and author of Networking. La rete come arte (2006) /Networking. The Net as Artwork (2008).

German researchers talk about communicative and cultural memories

Richard Meckien — 2013-05-08T19:35:00Z

Jan Assmann and Aleida Assmann, both professors at the University of Konstanz, Germany, will be the exhibitors of the international seminar Communicative and Cultural Memory, which will be held on May 15, at 7 pm, in the IEA'a Event Room. They will talk about the theory of memory that has been developed together from the work of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945) on collective memory. The event will be held in English with simultaneous translation and broadcast live on the web.

Throughout their studies, Jan and Aleida make a distinction between two types of memory: a communicative one, related to memories passed from one generation to another in an informal and daily way, usually by oral tradition, and a cultural one, referring to the collective memories of the past that have a symbolic character and that last through texts, images, rites, monuments and other mnemonic supports.

The main aspects of the theory developed by them are synthesized in the research project "The Past in the Present: Dimensions and Dynamics of Cultural Memory", on which they have been working since 2011. The seminar is supported by the Department of Modern Languages of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) of USP.

Lecturers

Aleida Assmann is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Konstanz. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Heidelberg and in Egyptology from the University of Tübingen. Her published papers cover fields such as Egyptology, English Literature and History of Literary Communication, but since the 1960's she has been working on memory theory. Her research focuses on cultural memory, with particular interest on the tensions between individual experiences and official memories of Germany's history in the post-World War II period.

Jan Assmann is Honorary Professor of Religious and Cultural Theory at the University of Konstanz, where he currently teaches, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Heidelberg, where he served until 2003. He holds a Dr. honoris causa title in Theology from the University of Münster. His publications cover the fields of Egyptology, focusing on interpretations of the origins of monotheism, Reception of Egypt in the European Tradition, History of Religion, Historical Anthropology and other topics. In recent years, he has been focusing on the dimension of cultural memory in a distant timeline, dating back more than 3000 years. From this, he seeks to understand the role of memory in disputes between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East and between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.