Forthcoming Events
Topology: Spaces of Transformation
Edges of the World
Tate Modern, Saturday 21 January 2012, 14.00–16.30
Artist Ernesto Neto in conversation with physicist Luiz Alberto Oliveira, science writer and curator Margaret Wertheim and philosopher Éric Alliez.
The participants in this panel experiment with intensive forces of philosophy, art, physics and cosmology, opening affirmative spaces of becoming imperceptible and porous to the outside. These experiments express different topological modes that can be understood as immersion in multiple, complex processes of transformation and flux.
‘Culture separates, bodies unify. How can we on a fragmented cultural planet, topolo-build a level of conviviality and habitability, beyond institutional skins, under a gravitational field?’
Ernesto Neto, Conviviality and Habitability at the Edges of the World
‘In recent years the application of topological concepts and methods to the study of dynamic systems has led to important advancements in our understanding of some basic aspects of the behaviour of complex phenomena appearing in different domains – material structures, living organisations and cognitive processes. Beside their intrinsic scientific importance, the new universality patterns emerging in such phenomena have significant implications for philosophy such as the venerable problem of morphogenesis, or generation of forms. Artistic endeavours, such as Ernesto Neto’s works, are pushing these formal almost abstract questions far beyond the purely intellectual realm, into a novel horizon of powerful aesthetic resources.’
Luiz Alberto Oliveira, Topology and Complexity: an Endeavour
This paper focuses on Ernesto Neto’s installation at the Panthéon in Paris, Leviathan Toth (2006), which invests the Panthéon with a confrontation between the image of power (in its modern Hobbesian form) and the power of the image. Neto brings us into a semiotics of intensities that does not belong to the ‘aesthetic regime’, as described by Jacques Rancière, but rather to a diagrammatic agency addressed to site-specific art. The latter will be (re)constructed after Deleuze and Guattari – from a biopolitics of the Body without Organs to a Body without Image. This Body confers on signs a new material power of decoding, which destratifies the space (physical, symbolic, discursive, institutional) anchored around the oscillations of Foucault's Pendulum, in an energetics of forces. It thereby offers a diagrammatic alternative to the metaphor-image of aesthetics.
Éric Alliez, Diagrammatic Agency versus Aesthetic Regime: Ernesto Neto's Anti-Leviathan
‘What does it mean to ‘know’? Topologically diverse and geometrically perverse, nature embraces throughout its evolutionary history structures of being that appal the most advanced mathematical minds. Knotted eels, crenellated corals and undulating sea slugs realize in their architectures spatial configurations that ‘educated’ humans long deemed impossible. Topology and geometry – the dual mathematical disciplines of form – have cascaded over the past two centuries into a series of intellectual revelations that had been physically understood in the organic realm since the Silurian age. Through an exploration of embodied knowledge in humble, sessile and brainless beings at the edges of human consciousness, this paper aims towards a rehabilitation of material wisdom, suggesting a radical, transformative alternative to modern symbolic modes.’
Margaret Wertheim, The Hyperbolic Imaginary: Topology and Geometry as Bodily Being
This keynote conversation will be followed by a seminar led by Bernard Burgoyne on 28 January 2012.
‘The Edges of the World are constituted around pathways and contours, which grasp the spatial neighbourhoods involved in everyday life. These spaces embody the pathways or disconnections with which people are intimately engaged. They constitute the way in which spatial realities are at play in the determination of people’s lives: alternative pathways can often be found through such an enveloping space.’
Bernard Burgoyne
Ernesto Neto is a contemporary visual artist. He lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and has established over the past 20 years an international reputation for his work. In 2001 Neto represented Brazil in the Venice Biennale. In 2010, he had three major exhibitions, The Edges of the World at the Hayward Gallery, London; a survey exhibition, Intimacy, at Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo and Dengo at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil. He was commissioned for his largest installation to date at the Park Avenue Armory, New York, in 2009. Other notable shows include Leviathan Thot, Panthéon, 35th Festival d'Automne, Paris, 2006 (solo); Ernesto Neto -The Malmö Experience, Malmö Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden, 2006 (solo). In 2007, he spent six months in Atelier Calder Foundation, Saché, France on an artist residency. In 2003, Ernesto along with two other artists, Marcio Botner and Laura Lima, founded a contemporary art gallery, called A Gentil Carioca which is located in downtown Rio. He is preparing a retrospective exhibition at MARCO, México, which opens on December 8th 2011.
Dr Luiz Alberto Oliveira is Researcher at the Institute of Cosmology, Relativity and Astrophysics (ICRA-BR), Brazilian Center for Physical Research (CBPF/MCTI), Rio de Janeiro; Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science, CBPF; Associate Researcher, Transdisciplinary Program of Advanced Studies (IDEA), School of Communication, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; Invited Lecturer, Oscar Niemeyer Office of Architecture; Scientist in residence, Dynamical Encounters International Art Workshops; and Curator, Museum of Tomorrow of Rio de Janeiro City (in development).
Éric Alliez, is Professor of Contemporary French Philosophy at the CRMEP, Kingston University, London and Professor of Philosophie et Créations Contemporaines en Art at the University of Paris 8. His works in English translation include: Capital Times (preface by G. Deleuze), 1997; The Signature of the World. Or What is the Philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari?, 2005; Capitalism and Schizophrenia and Consensus. Of Relational Aesthetics, 2010; The Guattari Effect (edited with A. Goffey), 2011. His recent works are focused on a problematisation of aesthetics: La Pensée-Matisse, 2005; L’Œil-Cerveau. Nouvelles Histoires de la peinture moderne, 2007. Forthcoming: Défaire l’image. De l’art contemporain.
Margaret Wertheim is a writer and curator whose work focuses on the intersection of science and the wider cultural landscape. She is the author of The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. Margaret and her sister Christine co-founded the Los Angeles-based Institute For Figuring, an organisation dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science and mathematics. The IFF’s Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is the largest participatory science/art project in the world.
Tate Modern Starr Auditorium
£15 (£12 concessions)
For tickets book online
or call 020 7887 8888.
Recent Events
Topology Research Unit
inaugural workshop
Topology: a Hands-On introduction
led by Professor Brian Rotman (Becoming Beside Ourselves, Ad Infinitum and Signifying Nothing), The Ohio State University
5pm, Tuesday 15 November, New Academic Building, room 3.14
“In the last decade or so topology has emerged as a potentially powerful heuristic tool in the arts, social sciences and the humanities. To lead the workshop I shall present a brief contextualization and a hopefully accessible introduction to the basic ideas of the field with an explication – including some hands-on engagement – of some important topological surfaces and knots”
– Brian Rotman
Open to all staff and students, more information
z.arabadji@gold.ac.uk
Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th November, Tate Modern, Level 7, East Room
Embodying Transformation
Performance programme comprising two events designed to give an embodied
experience of topological concepts. “Knots & Donuts” is an immersive
sound sculpture for listening to shapes drawn in three-dimensional space
(conceived by Julian Henriques). “Ordinal 5” employs dancers to explore
mathematical concepts (conceived by Brian Rotman). This one hour
performance programme repeated five times over the weekend is a
collaboration between Goldsmiths, University of London and the Ohio State
University as part of the Topology at Tate Modern.
Performance times
Saturday 19 November 2011, 14.00–15.00
Saturday 19 November 2011, 16.00–17.00
Saturday 19 November 2011, 19.00–20.00
Sunday 20 November 2011, 14.00–15.00
Sunday 20 November 2011, 17.00–18.00
further details and tickets:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/musicperform/24581.htm
TRU Rationale, aims and objectives
Topology is rapidly transforming itself into a new paradigm stretching across sciences and arts, theory and practice, and industry and the academy. The TRU has been set up to explore the two inter-related ways in which topology provides a conceptual language for understanding relationships, intensities and transformations - outside its original field of mathematics. One is as a methodological tool in social sciences and architecture. The other is as a tool for performance across a range of arts and creative practices. Both are interested in topology’s understanding of transformation and non-metric relationships.
1 Topological methodologies: One application of topology is as a methodological tool for helping to understand social, cultural and psychological issues. Here the emphasis is on product - how topological concepts can be applied to understand various phenomena, data and issues, and thereby to produce knew knowledge. Examples of this approach would include geographer’s use of topology to help understand processes of globalisation (Amin, Otlacan); and the topology of social networking. In philosophy topology figures in work of Etienne Balibar, Giorgio Agamben, Bruno Latour, Manual Delanda, Peter Sloterdyk, Rosi Braidotti, Michel Serres and Alain Badiou. In psychoanalysis Lacan used the topological Borromean knot of to describe the relationship between the Real, Symbolic, Imaginary.
2 Topological performances: The second way the TRU makes use of topology is in relation to performance practices. Here the emphasis is often on process and aesthetic values - how topological concepts are used to explore new forms of creative expression and how these can provide embodied ways of understanding topological concepts. Numerous artists, sculptors and designers have used topology to inform and inspire their work, as with, for example, Anthony Gormley, Ernesto Neto, Cecil Balmont and Olafur Eliasson, Kathy Prendergast and others. Topology has also been used in locative media mapping and the sonic arts by Bruce Nauman and Schafer-Krebs. This draws on a tradition of work initiated with Murray Shafer and Barry Truax’s soundscapes and Janet Cardiff’s sound walks.
Originated by Leibniz as analysis situs, topology is a branch of mathematics known as “rubber sheet geometry.” It provides methodologies for understanding dynamic change that can be applied to any relationships, intensities or multiples (material, social, cultural or aesthetic) that are invariable through transformation. Unlike the traditional Euclidean geometry, topological geometry is not concerned with measurement. Instead it provides mathematical formulations of continuous surfaces without tearing, cutting or pasting. Topology provides the basis for much non-linear dynamics, as well as chaos and catastrophe theories. Topological relationships are possibly more familiar than might be thought, as with the topological (rather than topographic) London tube map, or the knots that have been a key feature in Celtic, Coptic and Islamic design, or the puzzling beauty of the Möbius strip.
As a Media and Communications Department initiative the TRU objectives are to:- make a distinctive contribution to the Department’s research profile and REF narrative
- create impact for the department and the College in public fora, debate and exhibition spaces
- stimulate research and teaching in a currently exciting and innovative area that is very much in keeping with the Department’s interests and ethos
- attract research funding and sponsorship
- amplify links within the department, with other departments, universities organisations
Projects and interests
To stimulate interest in topology, the TRU is very much open to developing, helping to support and promoting any topologically related projects from within department and elsewhere. Sonic topology is one area of particular interest, exploring corporeal movement and embodied ways of knowing.
TRU Advisory Board
Prof Les Back (Graduate School)
Prof Nick Couldry
Prof Janis Jefferies (Computing)
Dr Julian Henriques (unit director)
Prof Celia Lury (Sociology)
Prof Brian Rotman (The Ohio State University)
TRU Members
Dr Lisa Blackman
Dr Marianne Franklin
Dr Sarah Kember
Dr Shamser Sinha (Sociology)
Dr Pasi Väliaho
Dr Joanna Zylinska
Industry Partners
Illustrious http://illustriouscompany.co.uk/
Duran Audio UK http://www.duran-audio.com/
3d Audioscape http://www.3daudioscape.org/homepage1.htm
Rubedo http://www.rubedo.co.uk/
Creative Sound Design Ltd
The TRU builds on the department’s research interests and record of related events:
The Future of Light and Sound (March 2009)
http://www.futureofsound.org/event04.htm
Synaesthesia Symposium (March 2009) http://www.gold.ac.uk/spr/future-of-sound/
Large Scale Immersive Audio Experiment (October 2009)
http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/events/largescaleimmersiveaudioexperiment/
Performing Topology symposium (March 2010)
http://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=3518
Media and the Senses conference (May 2011)
http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/calendar/?id=4336
This parallels the interests of other departments, particularly Sociology, with Celia Lury’s ATCD (A Topological Approach to Cultural Dynamics) three year EEC funded programme (2007- 2010) http://www.atacd.net/