OuUnPo and VISION FORUM present

eléna nemkova

alias cecilia canziani’s avatar

AFTER J.G. BALLARD_ re-enactment of a performance

with the participation of stephen whitmarsh

11^th december 11 pm

RongWrong artspace

Binnenbantammerstraat n.2
1011 CK Amsterdam

In the late Sixties, JG Ballard gave a performance at the ICA in London. He was asked to read some excerpts from his books. But instead he arranged to perform the reading of a scientific paper. This almost forgotten happening (in fact we have very few testimonies of it) by the sci-fi writer was one of the starting points of the process of visualization of scientific achievements in modern society. This theme is unbelievably important at a time when we can affirm with sustained arguments that science reveals the mechanism of relations and reactions within society. That at the basis of all social ideas, whether they took hold or were rejected, are physiological and neurological, almost primordial, motivations, which often do not submit to our control.

The main reason for wanting to perform this re-enactment is the continuing relevance of JG Ballard’s happening, as well as its affinity to my research interests.

Perhaps in the future the achievements of science will be transferred into the private sphere, to a human scale as still-primordial human consciousness, discarding everything redundant in order to give specific artistic form to communication, even when that communication is nearly impossible or entirely abstract.