CenSAMM Symposia Series 2018 – Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements
Alfredo Cramerotti and Michael Takeo Magurder for Apocalypse in ART: The Creative Unveiling
The word ‘apocalypse’ originally indicated an ‘unveiling’, and the speaker in the Book of Revelation is a ‘seer’. This is perhaps one of the reasons that this ancient text (and others like it) have generated such a ferment of creative responses in the visual arts – as well as those other non-visual strands of the arts which have their own way of engaging our mind’s eye.
The rich variety of types of artistic unveiling (visual, musical, dramatic, literary) makes an engagement with the creative arts a deeply valuable way of understanding and appreciating the idea of apocalypse, alongside more traditionally academic modes of enquiry.
This conference seeks to explore our relationship to art, its practice, its study and what the arts unveil to us. As artists or as audiences of art we can be profoundly transformed by our encounters with artistic creativity; indeed, we can find ourselves using the language of revelation to describe such encounters, regardless of our individual faith, religion or beliefs. Mark Rothko is quoted as saying, “the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.”
Thursday June 28th
9.00 – 9.30 Registration and coffee
9.30 – 9.40 Welcome
9.40 – 10.40 Keynote Speaker: Christopher Rowland, Dean Ireland’s Emeritus Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford: ‘John Saw these things Reveald in Heaven On Patmos Isle’: the Book of Revelation anticipates Blake’s Apocalypse.
11.00 – 11.30 Kip Gresham, Master Printmaker at The Print Studio, Cambridge: In the shadow of Durer.
11.30 – 12.00 Elena Unger, Department of Art and Critical Studies at Goldsmiths University of London: Desert Time: The Silence at the Heart of Apocalypse
1.00 – 2.00 Keynote Speaker: Michelle Fletcher, Research Associate on The Visual Commentary on Scripture at King’s College London where she is also a Research Fellow. Author of Reading Revelation as Pastiche: Imitating the Past (London: Bloomsbury, 2017): Visualising the Apocalypse as a Thing of the Past
2.30 – 3.00 Jonathan Evens, Associate Vicar, Partnership Development, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
3.00 – 3.45 Round table discussion with artist, Michael Takeo Magruder and Alfredo Cramerotti (Director of MOSTYN Wales and curator of “De/ coding the Apocalypse”)
3.45 – 5.00 Tour of “De/coding the Apocalypse” by Michael Takeo Magruder and tour of the Panacea Museum.
Friday June 29
9.00 – 9.30 Registration and coffee
9.30 – 9.40 Welcome
9.40 – 10.40 Keynote Speaker: Eleanor Heartney, author and journalist, contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress, New York: Revelation as Inspiration: The American Apocalypse
11.00 – 11.30 Rebekah Dyer, PHD candidate, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews: Reserved for Fire: Creative fire performances at David Best’s Temple and Shetland’s Up-Helly-Aa festival
11.30 – 12.00 Lilla Moore, Lecturer at BA programme in Mysticism and Spirituality, Zefat Academic College and Cybernetic Futures Institute (UK): Technoetic Aesthetics of Revelation and Transcendence – The Horse in the Mind
1.00 – 2.00 Keynote Speaker: Natasha O’Hear Lecturer in Theology & Visual Art at ITIA, University of St Andrews. With Anthony O’Hear, author of Picturing the Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation in the Arts Over Two Millennia (Oxford University Press, 2015): Visualising the Biblical Vision
2.30 – 3.00 Massimo Introvigne, Managing Director of CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions: Filming the Age of Kingdom: The End Times and the Movies of The Church of Almighty God
3.00 – 3.30 Matthew Askey, artist, curator, and Anglican priest. Currently serving as school chaplain at Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire’s cathedral: The Cross and the Zombie Apocalypse: Two Images for our Time
3.30 Closing comments.
Press coverage for Michael Takeo Magruder’s DE/CODING THE APOCALYPSE, CULTURAL INSTITUTE AT KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON
Cassone
The International Online Magazine of Art and Art Books
Argula Rublack
15 April 2015
Crane TV
by Tom Jenkins
05 December 2014
Full video interview (3.30 min) at http://www.crane.tv/apocalypse-now
The Creators Project
by Kevin Holmes
17 November 2014
The Guardian Guide
by Skye Sherwin
01 November 2014
Private View of De/coding the Apocalypse
De/coding the Apocalypse
A new exhibition by the visual artist Michael Takeo Magruder exploring contemporary creative visions inspired by and based on the Book of Revelation
Thursday 6 November 2014, 18.30 – 20.00
Followed by an Artist’s Talk, 20.15 – 21.00
Exhibition: Inigo Rooms, Somerset House East Wing, Strand, WC2R 2LS
Talk: Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus, King’s College London, Strand, WC2R 2LS (free)
Please RSVP by Monday 27 October to sophie.cornell@kcl.ac.uk stating whether you would also like a free ticket to the Artist’s Talk at 20.15.
De/coding the Apocalypse is a new exhibition by the visual artist Michael Takeo Magruder. It explores contemporary creative visions inspired by and based on the last book of the Bible – the Book of Revelation – investigating our enduring fascination with the Book, updating and interrogating both its positive and negative aspects.
The word ‘apocalypse’ originally indicated an ‘unveiling’, and the Book not only documents the destruction of the current world, but also maps out the creation of a new, better one. Using the latest in technology, from 3D printing to virtual reality, the show brings various elements to life in ways that are as playful as they are challenging.
The exhibition is an interdisciplinary collaboration supported by the Cultural Institute that blends arts practice and academic research and follows a one-year artist residency by Michael Takeo Magruder in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies with Lead Academic Professor Ben Quash at King’s College London and Curator Alfredo Cramerotti (MOSTYN). By aligning contemporary art and theological study, the collaboration aims to create new ways of looking at an ancient text and make it relevant for modern audiences. The exhibition is an opportunity for the public to think differently about theology and to gain unique behind the scenes access to the work of leading King’s academics.
Find out more at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/culturalinstitute.
The exhibition is open to the public from 7 November until 19 December, Tuesday – Sunday, 12.00 – 18.00. Admission is free.
Presented by the Cultural Institute at King’s College London in partnership with contemporary art centre MOSTYN and the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at King’s. 3D printer and materials generously supplied by PrintME 3D.
On Expansion: Photography’s Status in a Digital World
On Expansion: Photography’s Status in a Digital World
News Story and Vimeo Links
On Expansion was a roundtable discussion that recently took place at King’s College London on 21 January 2014. It was a closed-door workshop led by curator Alfredo Cramerotti (Director, MOSTYN) in partnership with artist/researcher Michael Takeo Magruder (Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London) that attempted to unpack certain aspects of the status of photography in an increasingly digital world. It is part of the AGM conversation series and was recorded as part of Alfredo Cramerotti’s ongoing research in this area.
The event focused on two lines of enquiry, namely: What is photography’s ontological status in the world today when thought in relationship to the omnipresence of the digital image and video? and How does this (digital) photographic moment in the history of image-making change the methodology of artistic and curatorial inquiries, their value, and their justification?
Discussion topics included:
- considering how the visual translations of ideas through various networked social systems have a major impact on our artistic and curatorial practices; examining how – now – images are made, distributed, recycled or found; and how curators are curating contemporary artists using new technology to reflect upon its meaning today.
- exploring how the artistic and curatorial act of making, manipulating, distributing and ‘digesting’ pictures is hybridized by devices like mobile phones, tablets and computers but, also, virtual reality glasses and game consoles.
- discussing the work of some artists and theorists in relation to these networked systems.
With an invited group of specialists and practitioners from diverse backgrounds, On Expansion looked at the ways in which conceptions about photography, art, digital practices and curating are in flux, and how these shifts – particularly in the artistic production and curatorial presentation of photography – can engender new ways of thinking about archives, collections, exhibitions and display.
Discussants included: Anna Bentkowska-Kafel (King’s College London), Gair Dunlop (University of Dundee), Marialaura Ghedini (University of Sunderland), Andrew Prescott (King’s College London), Anna Reading (King’s College London) and Gillian Youngs (University of Brighton).
Organisers:
Alfredo Cramerotti
Writer and Curator
Director, MOSTYN; Head Curator, APT Artist Pension Trust; Editor in Chief, Critical Photography series, Intellect Books; Research Scholar, eCPR European Centre for Photography Research, University of South Wales
http://www.alcramer.net + http://linkedin.com/in/alcramer
alcramer@gmail.com
Michael Takeo Magruder
Artist and Researcher
Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London
http://www.takeo.org + http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/ddh/people/affiliate/magruder
m@takeo.org
Links:
AGM Culture
http://agmculture.org
On Expansion video documentation
(part 1) http://vimeo.com/85040796
(part 2) http://vimeo.com/85046523
(part 3) http://vimeo.com/85054088
(part 4) http://vimeo.com/85069770
(part 5) http://vimeo.com/85069771
All That Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism on N_P Networked Performance
ll That Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism [
Derby]
Networked Performance Blog
[Image: Insurance.AES256 by Michael Takeo Magruder. See video below.]
All That Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism — Curated by Alfredo Cramerotti & Simon Sheikh :: until July 31, 2011 :: QUAD Gallery, Market Place, Cathedral Quarter, Derby, DE1 3AS.
The exhibition All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism presents the provocative idea that art and journalism are two sides of a unique activity; the production and distribution of images and information. The exhibition brings to the surface how images and information are communicated, and the aesthetic principles used in the act of transmission.
Whereas journalism provides a view on the world, as it ‘really’ is, art often presents a view on the view, as an act of reflection. All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism will examine both as systems of information that define truth in terms of the visible but also what can be imagined.
In the course of two months, the exhibition will be presented in three chapters: The Speaker, The Image and The Militant. The three separate displays of artwork refer to the rotation of the news cycle, while each responding to the overall theme.
The Speaker (May 28 – June 19) concerns a specific figure, the speaking subject or author, also in terms of editorial processes and camera angles. What can enable a subject to appear as authentic, authoritative and truthful?
The Image (June 22 – July 10) examines how images are produced, through framing and positioning, but also how counter-images are created. Despite the claim of neutrality and pragmatism, this chapter proposes an ‘aesthetics of journalism’.
The Militant (July13 – 31) continues the strand of counter-images, but by using journalistic means such as exposé and research. These methods often work to uncover what a corporate media industry does not, and thus return to some of reportage’s initial claims.
Sammy Baloji (DR Congo), Yael Bartana (Holland/ Israel), Eric Baudelaire (France), Ursula Biemann (Switzerland), Ross Birrell (UK), Michael Blum (Canada /Israel), Broomberg and Chanarin (UK/South Africa), Abraham Cruzvillegas (Germany/ Mexico), Anita Di Bianco (Germany/USA), Marcelo Exposito (Argentina/ Spain), Douglas Fishbone (UK/USA), Zachary Formwalt (Holland/ USA), Wynne Greenwood and K8 Hardy (USA), Tamar Guimaraes (Brazil/ Denmark), Lamia Joreige (Lebanon), Graziela Kunsch (Brazil), Michael Takeo Magruder (UK/USA), Renzo Martens (Holland), Oliver Ressler (Austria), Katya Sander (Denmark), Slum-TV (Kenya), Hito Steyerl (Germany), Walid Raad/ The Atlas Group (USA/ Lebanon) and Alejandro Vidal (Spain).
All That Fits – video introduction of Michael Takeo Magruder’s work from Alfredo Cramerotti on Vimeo.
All That Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism is supported by the Danish Art Council, Mondriaan Foundation, Autograph ABP, The Jack Kirkland Collection, the Embassy of Brazil in London and Centre National des Arts Plastiques (France).
Also see The Production of Truth: The Aesthetics of Journalism by Alfredo Cramerotti and Simon Sheikh, Digimag.
‘All That Fits’ exhibition – video introduction of Michael Takeo Magruder’s work
All That Fits: the Aesthetics of Journalism, curated by Alfredo Cramerotti and Simon Sheikh, includes the work ‘Insurance AES256 by Michael Takeo Magruder.
This is his video introduction to the work.
leave a comment