“Radicals and Radicants” – No Reading After the Internet

 January’s Reading: “Radicals
and Radicants” from The
Radicant by Nicholas
Bourriaud 

Facilitated by cheyanne turions 

Beginning in January, LIFT will play host to No Reading After the
Internet, a monthly opportunity to gather and read a text aloud, provoking
theoretical illumination on media art works and the context within which such
works exist. The focus of the salon series departs from an interest in cinema,
but will accommodate the broad and ever expanding scope of contemporary media
art practices.

The Toronto manifestation of No Reading carries forward an ongoing
endeavour that takes place in Vancouver. Information about the salon series can
be found here: www.noreadingaftertheinternet.wordpress.com.

The idea of a reading group isn’t new. No Reading nonetheless poses
itself as an experimental learning and discussion space. Simply put, we are
suspicious of our own reading abilities, and the extent to which our readings
are conversant with one another. No Reading means to offer a slow space within
which to retrace our steps in the hopes of discovering individual and
collective ways through the realms of language and interpretation. The
strategies we have at our disposal are twofold: through the yoking of our
discussions to a text; and inducing conversations between those texts and
related exhibitions or presentations.

The hope is that the varied experiences of those present will yield a
spontaneous understanding of the particular text at hand, through the lens of
the work it addresses. The idea is not to be lectured at, but to contribute to
an emerging, communal reading.

Participation in No Reading After the Internet is free and open to
everyone, regardless of their familiarity with a text or its author. Texts will
be handed out at the salon. No pre-reading or research is required.

January’s Reading

Provoked by the Gallery TPW presentation of The Permanent Longing for
Elsewhere, a screening curated by cheyanne turions, January’s reading will
explore Nicholas Bourriaud’s idea of what it means to be radicant. Following
modernism’s attempts to distill essential essences, to postmodernism’s
acceptance of cultural clutter, to the negotiating impulse of today’s
altermodernity, Bourriaud crafts a botanical metaphor for the specific reality
of how the immigrant, the exile, the tourist, and the urban wanderer have
become the dominant figures of contemporary culture.

Participants are strongly encouraged [though not required] to attend
the related screening:

The Permanent Longing for Elsewhere

Gallery TPW [56 Ossington]

Wednesday, 19 January 2011

7pm

Free

Questions about the salon series can be directed to cheyanne turions
at c.turions@gmail.com.

Co-presented with Gallery
TPW

Tuesday 25 January 2011 –

Non-members: FREE
Members: FREE

Location:
LIFT 
1137 Dupont Street 
Toronto Canada