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In the United States, the AIDS crisis is now almost completely within the control of public health management systems. Through global NGOs, we have exported our programs for managing this epidemic, along with US public health ideologies that downplay or avoid politically sensitive concerns with sexual rights (such as the rights of commercial sex workers), harm reduction (such as drug legalization and needle exchange), and the oppression of racial and sexual minorities (in the form of multi-generational poverty, incarceration). Increasing infection rates among poor women, rural populations, and young men of color who have sex with men and the inability of many around the world to access affordable, life-saving treatments remind us that social violence and structural inequalities are not resolved by the efficient management of the epidemic.

As long as this global health structure remains in place, the AIDS crisis is always still beginning. Film screening of Jean Carlomusto’s award-winning film Sex Is An Epidemic (2010), followed by an open discussion on how to organize against the AIDS crisis.

Posted on October 28, 2010

The sound-art collective Ultra-red is concerned with the intersection of sound and politics. Collective listening procedures serve as foundation of their exhibition Vogue’ology (at Parsons’ Aronson Gallery, November 17 through 30) which examines the possibilities for establishing an archive of the House/Ballroom community. These procedures have been deployed by the exhibition’s curatorial and archive teams to process and select fragments and phrases from House/Ballroom oral histories and vogue descriptions for the exhibition. Their interpretation will be further provoked and utilized to encourage visitors to move through the exhibition space. On occasion of Vogue’olgy, members of Ultra-red consider this intersection of sound and politics in a public event with artists, union organizers, historians and representatives of Ballroom ministries. The audience is invited to engage with sound as an object of reflection and with listening as a means of political organizing.

* Presented on occasion of the Vera List Center’s 2009/2011 focus theme “Speculating on Change.”

Posted on October 26, 2010

Lin + Lam
Since 2001, Lin + Lam have produced interdisciplinary projects that examine the ramifications of the past for the current socio-political moment. Attentive to materiality, site, and the specificities of different medium, their collaboration integrates their individual strengths and backgrounds. Trained in architecture, H. Lan Thao Lam uses photography, sculpture, and installation to address social memories of time, place and politics. Informed by critical cinema, Lana Lin has been interested in translation and the processes of identification. Their work has been exhibited at international venues including the New Museum, The Kitchen, the Queens Museum and LMAK Projects in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Arko Arts Center (Korean Arts Council,) Seoul, Korea, the Arte Nuevo InteractivA’07 Biennial, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Merida, Mexico, and the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China.

Lam received her MFA from CalArts and has been Assistant Professor at Middle State Tennessee University and Goddard College, MFA program. Lin received her MFA from Bard College and has been Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and the City College of New York. They have been honored with awards from the US Fulbright Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Princess Grace Foundation, among others.

See their projects: Change Encounters, It Happened Tomorrow: Probabilities, Predictions and Prophecies, and By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School

Robert Sember
Robert Sember is a member of the international sound art collective, Ultra-red, which collaborates with constituencies involved in migrant rights, fair housing and anti-racist struggles, and efforts to combat the AIDS crisis. Recent projects include: SCHOOL OF ECHOES, a multi-year exploration of militant sound investigations initiated during a three month residency at Raven Row, London, in early 2009; SILENT | LISTEN, an investigation of the conditions of the AIDS crisis in the U.S. and Canada presented in partnership with, among others, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; WE COME FROM YOUR FUTURE, an investigation of anti-racism movements in the United Kingdom, presented at Tate Britain, London; and, RE: ASSEMBLY, a long-term project on migration and citizenship commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery, London.

As a researcher in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University from 1998-2006, Robert focused on sexual rights, treatment access, community mobilization, and cultural production in response to the AIDS epidemic. He has taught in the Medical Anthropology Program in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, the Department of World Arts and Cultures at the University of California in Los Angeles, the Center for HIV/AIDS Networking at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and the Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture and Society at the University of Amsterdam’s Graduate School of Social Sciences.

Recent publications include: Rhine, D.T. and Sember, R. (writing for Ultra-red) (2009) Ten Preliminary Theses on Militant Sound Investigation. New York: Printed Matter; Padilla, M., Hirsch, J.S., Munoz-Laboy, M., Sember, R. and Parker, R.G. (eds) (2008) Love and Globalization: Transformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World. New York: Vanderbilt University Press; Parker, R.G., Petchesky, R. and Sember, R. (eds) (2008) SexPolitics: Reports from the Frontlines. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Sexuality Policy Watch; and, Sember, R. (2009) Sexuality Research in South Africa: The Policy Context. Vasu Reddy and Theo Sandfort, eds. From Social Silence to Social Science: Same-Sex Sexuality, HIV & AIDS and Gender in South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC Press.

See his projects: Vogue’ology, The Cardew Object, and By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School

Posted on August 24, 2010

A three-day event explores the radical oeuvre of British experimental composer Cornelius Cardew and the activities of the Scratch Orchestra (co-founded by him in 1969), and illuminates their significance today as artistic, pedagogical and political tools. Workshops, sound installations, a film screening, and an exhibition bring together historians, musicians, artists, and New School faculty and students, and are presented at The New School. Among the participants are contemporary music ensemble Either/Or, artists Luke Fowler and Robert Sember, and New School faculty members Danielle Goldman, Sarah Montague, Simonetta Moro, Evan Rapport and Ivan Raykoff and their students. Pianist and Cardew biographer John Tilbury is contributing a (pre-recorded) Call-to-Action.

Inspired by The Cardew Object at the ICA London (November 2009), these events are organized by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics as part of its 2009-2010 program theme “Speculating on Change.” Vera List Center Fellow Robert Sember, a member of the sound-art collective Ultra-red and the School of Echoes, leads the colloquium and workshops in collaboration with faculty members from Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. DAY THREE PROGRAM Exhibition The Skybridge Art & Sound Space Opening Reception: Thursday, April 15, 2010 – 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Exhibition Dates: Thursday, April 15 to Monday, May 10, 2010 Skybridge Gallery, Eugene Lang College, 65 West 11th Street, 3rd floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street) Admission: Free New School faculty Sarah Montague and Simonetta Moro and their students in the Skybridge Curatorial Project present an exhibition celebrating Cardew’s work and the events above. The Skybridge Art & Sound Space hosts multi-media exhibitions and curriculum-based projects in the arts, showcasing student projects that make the space a vibrant and exciting laboratory for visual, aural, and critical thinking. __________________________________________________________________ Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) was a seminal figure of the British avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s. A student of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and a follower of John Cage, he formed the Scratch Orchestra with Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton in 1969 in London. Based on their experiments, Cardew published the book Scratch Music, now a classic resource for experimental musicians. In the late 1970s, Cardew became increasingly involved in a Marxist-Leninist discourse, eventually rejecting his own compositional work as elitist. Cardew died in an unresolved hit-and-run accident at the age of forty-five, estranged from most of his colleagues and challenged for his political convictions.

The Scratch Orchestra was a collaborative group of musically trained and untrained participants engaged in radical modes of improvisatory and cross-disciplinary art-making. In an effort to liberate performers from the constraints of traditional music notation as well, Cardew developed elaborate forms of graphic notation – all part of an explicit agenda of political consciousness and social action. These larger “ways of organizing,” including interpretations of two sections from Cardew’s The Great Learning (1968-71), are presented during The New School events in a structured environment that invites creative engagement and collaboration. __________________________________________________________________

Posted on March 31, 2010

A three-day event explores the radical oeuvre of British experimental composer Cornelius Cardew and the activities of the Scratch Orchestra (co-founded by him in 1969), and illuminates their significance today as artistic, pedagogical and political tools. Workshops, sound installations, a film screening, and an exhibition bring together historians, musicians, artists, and New School faculty and students, and are presented at The New School. Among the participants are contemporary music ensemble Either/Or, artists Luke Fowler and Robert Sember, and New School faculty members Danielle Goldman, Sarah Montague, Simonetta Moro, Evan Rapport and Ivan Raykoff and their students. Pianist and Cardew biographer John Tilbury is contributing a (pre-recorded) Call-to-Action.

Inspired by The Cardew Object at the ICA London (November 2009), these events are organized by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics as part of its 2009-2010 program theme “Speculating on Change.” Vera List Center Fellow Robert Sember, a member of the sound-art collective Ultra-red and the School of Echoes, leads the colloquium and workshops in collaboration with faculty members from Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

DAY TWO PROGRAM

Workshop
How Can We Organize Collective Listening?
Saturday, April 10, 2010 – 12:00 to 6:00 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor
Admission: Free, advance reservations recommended at vlc@newschool.edu

New School faculty members Evan Rapport and Ivan Raykoff host a public workshop developed in collaboration with Lang College classes New Ears for New Music (Raykoff), Punk & Noise (Rapport), Politics of Improvisation (Danielle Goldman), Image/Text (Simonetta Moro), and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music class Cross-Cultural Improvisation (Rapport). Workshop participants are asked to collect sounds in response to a specific question relating to local and current social or political concerns, then explore procedures for collective listening and organized action following some of Cardew’s models. Public participation encouraged – sound tools provided. __________________________________________________________________

Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) was a seminal figure of the British avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s. A student of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and a follower of John Cage, he formed the Scratch Orchestra with Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton in 1969 in London. Based on their experiments, Cardew published the book Scratch Music, now a classic resource for experimental musicians. In the late 1970s, Cardew became increasingly involved in a Marxist-Leninist discourse, eventually rejecting his own compositional work as elitist. Cardew died in an unresolved hit-and-run accident at the age of forty-five, estranged from most of his colleagues and challenged for his political convictions.

The Scratch Orchestra was a collaborative group of musically trained and untrained participants engaged in radical modes of improvisatory and cross-disciplinary art-making. In an effort to liberate performers from the constraints of traditional music notation as well, Cardew developed elaborate forms of graphic notation – all part of an explicit agenda of political consciousness and social action. These larger “ways of organizing,” including interpretations of two sections from Cardew’s The Great Learning (1968-71), are presented during The New School events in a structured environment that invites creative engagement and collaboration. __________________________________________________________________

Posted on March 31, 2010

A three-day event explores the radical oeuvre of British experimental composer Cornelius Cardew and the activities of the Scratch Orchestra (co-founded by him in 1969), and illuminates their significance today as artistic, pedagogical and political tools. Workshops, sound installations, a film screening, and an exhibition bring together historians, musicians, artists, and New School faculty and students, and are presented at The New School. Among the participants are contemporary music ensemble Either/Or, artists Luke Fowler and Robert Sember, and New School faculty members Danielle Goldman, Sarah Montague, Simonetta Moro, Evan Rapport and Ivan Raykoff and their students. Pianist and Cardew biographer John Tilbury is contributing a (pre-recorded) Call-to-Action.

Inspired by The Cardew Object at the ICA London (November 2009), these events are organized by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics as part of its 2009-2010 program theme “Speculating on Change.” Vera List Center Fellow Robert Sember, a member of the sound-art collective Ultra-red and the School of Echoes, leads the colloquium and workshops in collaboration with faculty members from Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

DAY ONE PROGRAM

Colloquium with Sound Installation and Film Screening

An Introduction to Cardew Friday, April 9, 2010 65 West 11th Street (enter at 66 West 12th Street) Admission: $8, free for all students as well as New School faculty, staff and alumni with valid ID Sound samples installation by New School students – 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Introduction by Robert Sember – 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. Film screening, followed by discussion – 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Cornelius Cardew’s music and ideas – and their significance today as an artistic as well as pedagogical and political project – are introduced by Vera List Center Fellow Robert Sember. A screening follows of Glasgow-based artist Luke Fowler’s Pilgrimage from Scattered Points (2006, 45”), a film that explores the internal contradictions and struggles of Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra through first person interviews, recent and archival footage and original recordings.

“Filmmaker Luke Fowler depicts the Scratch Orchestra’s composer Cornelius Cardew in action, resonating in a brilliant, impressionistic visual landscape. Sound and image unite to form a hypnotic and freely associating current, which reaches far into the subjective sphere of experimental film.” (hotdocs.com)

Robert Sember and Luke Fowler are then joined by art historian Claire MacDonald, New School faculty members Ivan Raykoff and Evan Rapport in a closing discussion.

Sound samples culled from previous workshops are installed in the lecture hall and ring in the evening’s events; pianist John Tilbury (via recording), Cardew’s biographer and one of his closest associates, provides a call-to-action. __________________________________________________________________

Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) was a seminal figure of the British avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s. A student of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and a follower of John Cage, he formed the Scratch Orchestra with Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton in 1969 in London. Based on their experiments, Cardew published the book Scratch Music, now a classic resource for experimental musicians. In the late 1970s, Cardew became increasingly involved in a Marxist-Leninist discourse, eventually rejecting his own compositional work as elitist. Cardew died in an unresolved hit-and-run accident at the age of forty-five, estranged from most of his colleagues and challenged for his political convictions.

The Scratch Orchestra was a collaborative group of musically trained and untrained participants engaged in radical modes of improvisatory and cross-disciplinary art-making. In an effort to liberate performers from the constraints of traditional music notation as well, Cardew developed elaborate forms of graphic notation – all part of an explicit agenda of political consciousness and social action. These larger “ways of organizing,” including interpretations of two sections from Cardew’s The Great Learning (1968-71), are presented during The New School events in a structured environment that invites creative engagement and collaboration. __________________________________________________________________

Posted on December 21, 2009

For the next few months, Switchboard features an annotated bibliography in development, related to the center’s theme for 2009-1010, Speculating on Change. The project is initiated by 2009-2010 fellow Robert Sember, a member of the sound art collective Ultra-red, and is part of their multi-year initiative, School of Echoes, an examination of procedures of collective investigation and social change.

The bibliography assembles a selection of “classic” texts as well as lesser known works that address philosophical, theoretical and ideological conceptions of change, with particular emphasis given to political and social change and shifting approaches to art and cultural production. The bibliography aims to be generous and wide-ranging rather than comprehensive or canonical, and includes a series of brief annotations written by Sember.

Check back monthly for new annotations and other updates. Recommendations for additions are welcome and can be forwarded to the Vera List Center.

Launch School of Echoes.

Posted on September 20, 2009