Conversation (extract) The City, London March 2013
December 23, 2014 § Leave a comment
You have no money in your education system, that’s us (‘the markets’), you have no money in your health system, that’s us…you have no money for culture, that’s us…it’s everything.
(from fieldnotes of conversation with Senior Trader, Cafe, The City, London, March 2013)
from THE MARKET.
Full transcripts, THE MARKET (installation image)
SOUND VISION ACTION 2014 (Update)
December 17, 2014 § Leave a comment
Shadows, the open illusion of the global economy and the curtain soon to fall.
Gathered in Montreal for #SVA2014 in November through the energies of the team of Media@McGill, graduate students, Jonathan Sterne, Nicholas Mirzoeff and Tamar Tembeck. The resulting presentations and discussion have now been fully archived. Includes Natalie Bookchin, Caren Kaplan, Negar Mottahedeh, Amelia Jones, Daphne Brooks, Anette Hoffmann, Dont Rhine (Ultra-Red), Karin Bijsterveld, Nathalie Casemajor and Sumanth Gopinath (whom I shared a panel on the theme of Capitalism) amongst others.
This is the The Normalisation of Deviance and the construction of THE MARKET.
Q&A with fellow panellist Sumanth Gopinath (photograph courtesy of Mauricio Delfin)
The complete archive of presentations and discussions is available here.
SOUND VISION ACTION 2014
November 11, 2014 § Leave a comment
SOUND VISION ACTION 2014 taking place at McCord Museum in cooperation with McGill University in Montreal on Friday and Saturday, November 14-15. The event is open to the public and free of charge.
This international colloquium has been convened by Prof. Jonathan Sterne (McGill), Prof. Nicholas Mirzoeff (New York University) and Dr. Tamar Tembeck (McGill) with the intention to:
puts contemporary art and scholarship in sound studies and visual culture in direct dialogue around questions of power and politics.
It is organised through Media@McGill, a hub of research, scholarship and public outreach on issues and controversies in media, technology and culture, housed within the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University.
Panels:
Surveillance: Caren Kaplan, Karin Bijsterveld
Performance: Daphne Brooks, Amelia Jones
Militancy: Nathalie Casemajor, Ultra-red (Dont Rhine & Robert Sember)
Humanity: Negar Mottahedeh, Anette Hoffman
Capitalism: Mark Curran, Sumanth Gopinath
Mediation: Natalie Bookchin, Georgina Born
Mark Curran will present on the research project, THE MARKET, which focuses on the functioning and condition of the global markets. Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, this was undertaken in collaboration with Helen Carey, Curator and Director of Firestation Artist’ Studios, the project was a central part of the visual art programme marking the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout. It was installed at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Belfast Exposed, Limerick City Gallery of Art, CCA Derry-Londonderry and most recently at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (2014). A publication is planned for 2015.
Full list and overview of speakers available here. The event will be live streamed and then archived. Full details can be found at:
http://www.soundvisionaction.cc
Making History: MICHAEL SCHMIDT (1945-2014)
May 31, 2014 § Leave a comment
I don’t understand people and historians who view history as something finished, something past. For me, history only has a function when it is defined from the vantage point of the present so to speak, as an essential component of the present and the future.
(Michael Schmidt 2010)
Michael Schmidt (portrait by John Gossage)
Last Saturday, May 24th, in Berlin, the exceptional Michael Schmidt passed away. Too soon. Schmidt was one of the most important German-born, post-war artists. His projects, EIN-HEIT and Waffenruhe, both as books and installations, changed everything about how I thought about and indeed used photography.
Here are links to more extensive description and review of Schmidt’s work:
Gerry Badger
American Suburb X
And an eloquent obituary by Jörg Colberg.
PROGRESS REPORT
May 15, 2014 § 1 Comment
It has been some time since the last post. This followed an intensive series of events around THE MARKET , most recently being a very successful installation at the Centre Culturel Irlandais. The public and media response in Paris, further underscored the profound interest in, and indeed a need to discuss, the subject matter of the project, a subject matter that continues to grip the world.
In addition, the time away from posting has provided a chance to reflect upon where the project finds itself. The intention is to now make a further research trip later in the summer to a site in Asia that has always been viewed as a pivotal location for the project. As elsewhere, this is dependent on securing access. To date, the process of negotiation has taken almost 2 years. However, a central conceptual framing has been both how access embodies a state of relation and condition of the functioning of the markets.
In anticipation of securing access, the plan is then is for a significant publication of the complete project to appear in 2015.
In the meantime, this blog/gathering place will continue to host posts in relation to THE MARKET. Enabling a means to reflect on the research process and indeed how the mechanism/momentum of financial capitalism continues to play itself out. Perhaps to completion.
Finally, as part of this post. Here is a short video of the first installation, which includes the audio of the algorithmic soundscape, The Normalisation of Deviance as installed at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin late last year.
Installation THE MARKET Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris
February 25, 2014 § Leave a comment
The image below from the installation is titled The Normalisation of Deviance II shows Spectrograms, a moving visual representation of the soundscape of the installation. The soundscape has been generated through the data collated by an algorithm to identify how often the French Minister of Finance, Pierre Moscovici used the word Market or Markets in his public speeches during the year, 2013.
Online reviews of the installation
Time Out Paris (English Version)
The project has been generously supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and the installation in Paris by Culture Ireland.
The Theatre of Memory (Symposium), Abbey Theatre II
February 17, 2014 § Leave a comment
In mid-January, I was very pleased to be invited to contribute to the 3-day Theatre of Memory Symposium at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Titled, The Normalisation of Deviance: constructing THE MARKET, with introduction by Fiach Mac Conghail, Director of the Abbey, my presentation on the historic stage was recorded:
The event was attended by a full-house and a review is available on the Abbey website here. The full playlist of the recorded presentations by a rich array of speakers is available here. The symposium was the first of three annual events that are planned.
THE MARKET/ Centre Culturel Irlandais/ Paris
January 30, 2014 § Leave a comment
CCI Invitation (cover)
…what people don’t understand… is that what happens in the market is pivotal to their lives… not on the periphery, but slap, bang, in the middle…
(from telephone conversation with Trader (name withheld), Dealing Room, Investment Bank, London, February 2013)
Mark Curran’s challenging new project THE MARKET sets out to make visible – literally and metaphorically – the sphere where our futures are speculated upon. His multi-media installation includes photographs, films, transcripts of interviews and a soundscape that investigate the functioning of the global stock and commodity markets. From Dublin to London, Frankfurt and Addis Abeba, the artist concentrates on the experience of individuals working within a supremely complex system. In the installation at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, the relationship between the individual and the abstract algorithmic systems of the market is heightened through a sound piece designed by Ken Curran that permeates the gallery space, which is generated from algorithms identifying the words market or markets from public speeches given by the French Minister of Finance, Pierre Moscovici.
Nora Hickey M’Sichili, Director of Centre Culturel Irlandais
5, rue des Irlandais
75005 – Paris
January 30 – March 2
Opening times of the exhibitions:
2pm – 6pm Tuesday to Saturday
(Late opening Wednesday until 8pm)
12.30pm – 2.30pm Sunday
Full programme contextualising the exhibition on the opening weekend includes panel discussion with David McWilliams (Writer & Economist), Alfred M’Sichili (Philosopher & Political Economist), Helen Carey, Mark Uzan (Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee) and Mark Curran, an evening with the organisers of ‘Kilkenomics’.
The installation and events in Paris are supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland.
THE IRISH REVIEW
December 20, 2013 § Leave a comment
The Irish Review, Winter 2013, No. 47 (cover, courtesy The Irish Review)
The latest edition of the bi-annual journal, The Irish Review (Cork University Press) has just been published:
The Irish Review has provided a forum for critical and creative writing since 1986. With an editorial policy that is pluralist and interdisciplinary we publish articles on the arts, society, philosophy, history, politics, the environment and science. Our aim is to serve a general rather than a specialist readership.
The guest editor is Dr Aaron Kelly, alongside Dr. Colin Graham, Prof. Michael Cronin and Dr. Clare O’Halloran, and addresses Cultures of Class. The cover image is from THE MARKET:
Bell, Decommissioned Trading Floor,
Irish Stock Exchange (ISE)
Dublin, Ireland, July 2012
A podcast in relation to this issue can be heard here.
MOMENTOUS TIMES (FORUM)
October 29, 2013 § Leave a comment
Marking the conclusion of the exhibition, Momentous Times, curated by Aileen Burns & Johan Lundh, a forum has been organised for Saturday, November 2nd at CCA Derry-Londonderry.
Aideen Doran ‘Good Luck All Workers’ (2013)
The first two decades of the 20th century were undeniably momentous for people of Ireland on many fronts. There were major strikes for dock, tram, and factory workers from Belfast to Cork, Galway to Limerick, from 1907 to 1913, culminating in the Dublin Lockout.
The centenary of the Dublin Lockout has prompted CCA to consider conditions of labour and the role of representation in shaping work and workers’ rights between three moments: 1913, 2013, and 2113. Through an exhibition, public forums, screenings, and a publication, Momentous Times examines the past, explores the present, and speculates about the future of labour.
On Saturday, November 2nd, we will host the second and last public forum between noon and 6 pm, organised and moderated by scholar and writer Marina Vishmidt. The forum will feature presentations by Mark Curran, Eamonn McCann, Anthony Iles, Precarious Workers Brigade, Kerstin Stakemeier, Hito Steyerl, and Josefine Wikström.
Full details and programme are available here.
THE MARKET 