<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; ">UNNEEDED CONVERSATIONS 2012 – LOW COST</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; ">International Seminar on the practice and theory of art</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; ">FBAUP, Porto, 16-19 Maio/May</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; "><br></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; ">Info in portuguese here: <a href="http://www.i2ads.org/unneeded2012/">http://www.i2ads.org/unneeded2012/</a></span><div style="font-family: monospace; "><br>_________________<br>REGISTRATION OPEN<div>_________________<br><br>UNNEEDED CONVERSATIONS: PRACTICE AND THEORY OF ART are an international initiative and component of the Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS). These seminars had their debut in May 2010 and aim to construct an interdisciplinary forum of discussion and reflection on contemporary artistic practice.<br><br>UNNEEDED CONVERSATIONS 2012 – LOW COST will take place from May, 16 to May, 19, at the School of Fine Arts, University of Porto and other venues.<br><br>Organization:<br>Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS) / Research Group in Art and Intermedia<br><br>Hosted by:<br>School of Fine Arts – University of Porto (FBAUP)<br><br>Editors:<br>Miguel Leal and Fernando José Pereira (FBAUP)<br><br>Invited Editors:<br>UNEDITED – Mário Moura (FBAUP) and Sofia Gonçalves (FBAUL)<br>UNTAKEN – Pedro Bandeira (UM)<br><br> <br>Introduction:<br>Not two years have passed since we organized the first UNNEEDED CONVERSATIONS (UNC), in May 2010, and nothing is the same anymore (and since then everything has changed). A kind of emergency state has settled around us, in which everything seems to have collapsed. Everyday life is now contaminated by the lexicon of the crisis, and this crisis purports to occupy all the interstices of reality, while at the same time, it is entirely to blame; it is an excuse to resuscitate postponed projects or, and why not, an opportunity for the radical thought of difference.<br><br>It was in this context that we decided to give continuity to the unneeded conversations, aware of the difficulties ahead, and because it’s realization could not have been met by more adverse conditions. Our aim is to assure that the impossibility of UNC 2012 turns into turbulence, just like the image of the steam engine’s motor which, although obsolete, insistently continues to work. Imperfect and stammering, it is the fact that this machine continues to work that makes it productive.<br><br>Bearing all this in mind, we have decided to look reality in the face and organize these unneeded conversations under the label of low cost. We all recognize this term, though only from the standpoint of consumption and the possibility of profit generation. We know the airlines, the hotels, the restaurants, the outlets -; in short, a whole reality that prevails in the visible face of the contemporary economy, and is as happy as it is delusive, since the low cost brought not only the democratization of consumption but also the imposition of precariousness as a bargaining chip.<br><br>The notion of low cost – and its dependent precarious forms – isn’t exclusive to financial economics and opens a whole new and unsuspected productive field of thought and action. As we know there are other economies which can also be seen in the light of low cost. Think only on artistic practice and on the discovery of new forms of action that integrate precariousness as a powerful means to continue to produce sense; think on the forms of mediation that resist to the obsession of technological novelty or to the myth of transparent communication; think on the re-appropriation of the degraded public space of cities and its loose transformation; think on the outbreak of the author’s edition and the construction of alternative ways of publishing; think, in short, on how the precarious character of some of these realities is exactly what gives them a productive status and a resistance to the mainstream of low cost.<br><br>The UNC 2012 discussion topics, one per day, are the following:<br><br>may 16 - UNGOVERNABLE: The precarious politics of art<br>may 17 - UNTAKEN: Public Space, Back to Normality<br>may 18 - UNEDITED: Pocket Publication: the Economy of Publishing<br>may 19 - UNFUELED: The Potentiality of Media and its Shadows<br><br><br>Confirmed Speakers:<br>Marcelo Campos (BR), Xosé Lois Gutiérrez (SP), Bruno Dias (PT), Xavier Monteys Roig (SP), Miguel Silva Graça (PT), Francisco Ferreira (PT), John Körmeling (NL), Pedro Cid Proença (PT/UK), Miguel Wandschneider (PT), Joana & Mariana (PT), Phil Baber (NL), Andreas Broeckmann (D), Arantza Lauzirika (SP), Daniel Ribeiro (BR), Von Calhau (PT), Pangrama (PT), Punkto (PT) and Embankment (PT).<br><br><br>More info <a href="http://www.unneeded.i2ads.org/en">http://www.unneeded.i2ads.org/en</a><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.i2ads.org">http://www.i2ads.org</a></div><div>unneeded [at] <a href="http://i2ads.org">i2ads.org</a></div></div></div></body></html>