Artistic Research Case I: Queer Values

READING

DAY 7

Artistic Research Case I: Queer Values

Can a system be created in a way that sustains and supports ever-transitional practices? Can conflict be generative? What’s the power of (re) using? Can worlds be (re)shaped from failing to accomplish the right use instructions? On Reading Day 7 we discussed, accompanied by the readings of Ahmed and Schulman, what may happen when bodies do not fit seamlessly into the spaces designated for them (Ahmed 224). We discussed the possibilities of uses (of spaces, rules, institutions, and bodies): The queer use, the missuse, the wayward use, the refusal to use, or to be used... Since instructions are only necessary because they can be refused, we examined them through a reparative looking: What are the values that underpin the right and wrong instructions? How can they be subverted?. Building together (recycling, reusing, sharing), doing with others, weaving support systems, communities, which allow us to say no; to learn to love what does not, and will not, last (Ahmed 226). We took time, all the necessary time, all the wanted time, to get to the point. Maybe we never got there.

Based on:

Sara Ahmed, “What’s the Use?”

Sarah Schulman, “Conflict is not abuse”

Film screening: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sopralluoghi in Palestina per il vangelo secondo Matteo, 60 mins