What is a University?
This article investigates and responds to the problematic question of how people imagine the idea of a University. What exactly are the assumptions of say, a group of research students? How do different universities instigate and enforce the boundaries of membership and participation? And exactly what kind of education is on offer when universities operate as a 'service' industry with a managerial rationale borrowed from the business models of corporate capitalism? The aim is to capture a moment of the University in transition and to problematise its conditions.
JAR: Journal of Artistic Research
Political Activism and Art: A Consideration of the Implications of New Developments in Practice.
This paper is a reflection on the work of some activist artists and the development of new strategies for democratic engagement that expand notions of citizenship. I argue that activist artists challenge the limitations of our representative democracy and its inadequacy by addressing conceptual problems consequent upon capitalism. Drawing on the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Ariella Azoulay and other academics who are concerned to map the shifting political landscape, this paper outlines the need for art to be embedded in public and political discourse.
Political Activism and Art pdf
Assembling an Assembly: Occupying the Althing
It is not obvious that one needs a sovereign for a society to organise itself or to address its concerns and much of what the Occupation movement has drawn attention to is the possibility for people to assemble, discuss, vote on and implement actions that have local and national significance in the absence of a leader. This article examines the legislative and judicial system of Medieval Iceland's proto-democratic, 'sovereign-less' state and draws comparisons with activist networks. An edited version of the article can also be read in the
