[spectre] Under Fire symposium | May 29, 2004

[richard de boer]

*************************************************************
Under Fire | May 29, 2004 | 15.00 - 19.00 CET (GMT +1)
A critical forum on the organization and representation of violence by
Jordan Crandall presented by Witte de With in collaboration with
V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam.
*************************************************************

Under Fire explores the organization and representation of contemporary
armed conflict. The project consists of a series of presentations and
discussions that occur online, and live in Rotterdam. The discussions
involve participation from individuals working in politics, theory,
criticism, the arts, and journalism from both the West and the Middle
East.


This first symposium bringing the together the lead participants in the
project, including John Armitage, Asef Bayat, Susan Buck-Morss, Brian
Holmes, Gema Martín Muñoz and Loretta Napoleoni will be moderated by
Jordan Crandall. The project explores the ways that armed violence
materializes as act and image, searching for new insight into its
mechanisms and effects. In so doing, it engages issues of economy,
embodiment, symbolic meaning, and affect. By delving into the economic
underpinnings of contemporary armed conflict UNDER FIRE scrutinizes the
legacy of the "military-industrial complex," the rise of the privatized
military industry, and the repercussions of the commercialization of
violence.


The project has been looking at contemporary conflicts as being driven by
combinations of territorial, market, and ideological imperatives, and new
attempts at the reconciliation of identity and universality. It looks to
emergent processes of organization that operate on multiple levels of
temporality and implicit form. Through this approach, Under Fire aims to
articulate emergent systems of decentralized control and new global
dynamics of power. By building on historical concepts of hegemony, the
project attempts to understand the nature of emergent power and the forms
of resistance to it, and situating cycles of violence within the
modalities of a global system.


Stream and live IRC moderation via http://www.v2.nl/live/ Online
moderation by Stephen Kovats, V2_.


Program
15.00 - 15.10 welcome by Catherine David
15.10 - 15.30 introduction by Jordan Crandall
15.30 - 15.50 Brian Holmes
15.50 - 16.10 Asef Bayat
16.10 - 16.30 Susan Buck-Morss
16.30 - 17.00 discussion and live feedback
17.00 - 17.30 break
17.30 - 17.50 John Armitage
17.50 - 18.10 Loretta Napoleoni
18.10 - 18.30 Gema Martín Muñoz
18.30 - 19.00 discussion and live feedback


For reservations phone +31 (0)10 4110144, or e-mail office at wdw.nl .
For more information about Under Fire, the speakers and the webarchive see
www.wdw.nl.


Publication
The first publication in the Under Fire series - hot off the press -
entitled Jordan Crandall. Under Fire. 1. On the organization and
representation of violence, will be on sale during the symposium. It
contains a compilation of the dialogues that occured online in spring
2004. Price: ? 12.
Under Fire is a project by Jordan Crandall organized by Witte de With in
collaboration with V2_, Rotterdam.


For those of you who have been participating in <underfire>, the moderated
discussions online over the past few months, and those who are simply
interested in the project and can not attend the conference in person we
invite you to actively participate online. The event will be streamed live
with an open IRC channel to enable your direct remote participation. There
will be a moderated chat throughout the session so that your comments and
questions can be included in the discussion and the texted commentary of
the chat will run onscreen during the event.
We are very much interested in your opinions, critique and feedback, and
hope that you can join us from wherever you are at that day!


Saturday, May 29 | 15.00 - 19.00 hrs CET, GMT +1
Witte de With | Witte de Withstraat 50 | Rotterdam | The Netherlands
Webarchive of the project at www.wdw.nl
Stream and live IRC moderation via http://www.v2.nl/live/


V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media
Eendrachtsstraat 10
3012 XL Rotterdam
+ 31 (0)10 206 72 72
v2 at v2.nl
http://www.v2.nl