The Faculty of Invisibility
16 Apr - 15 May 2010
THE FACULTY OF INVISIBILITY
16 April - 15 May 2010
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm (until 7pm on Thursdays during GI)
DARK LIGHT
And yet, at least for a moment in these pages, these lives shine blindingly with a dark light.
Giorgio Agamben: The Author as Gesture
In its current production the Faculty of Invisibility engages itself with processes of institutionalisation. Exposing the mechanisms of these processes by means of quotation, the Faculty of Invisibility tries to put them at play. As speech, gesture or image, the examples assembled draw attention to a place inherent to any institution, one that concerns its foundation.
At Transmission Gallery the Faculty of Invisibility is concerned with the concept of a ‘dark light’: a light that occurs along the lines of bureaucratic acts and texts. With this dark light the doubling of any bureaucratic gesture – at once expressive and inexpressive – is illuminated. Through a rhythm of setting in and out – of being in and out of force - the Faculty of Invisibility strives for a manifestation, which like a dark light, no longer merely exposes or exhibits.
The Faculty of Invisibility was founded in 2006 with The Speech. Guests were invited to open departments within the Faculty of Invisibility relating to their own individual practices, such as the Department of Uncertainty, the Department of Haunting and the Department of Doubt. Two years later in The Invitation, the Faculty of Invisibility explicitly took up the question of its own becoming public: Over the course of three months, a series of letters and postcards sent to 550 addressees known personally to the authors formed a gesture of insistence. The series aimed to create an encounter, which suggested a place situated in the realm of memory rather than offering an attendable exhibition. Also in 2008, the authors of these letters announced the resignation of the Faculty of Invisibility. This act indicated the Faculty of Invisibility’s modality of always being carried out anew. Since then, the Faculty of Invisibility has been less an institution that establishes itself in terms of chronology, continuity and a definite place or position of speech, than a gesture of constituting and withdrawing itself at once. Since its resignation the Faculty of Invisibility has dedicated its work to a practice of instituting that attempts to assemble, quote and execute moments of institutionalisation without giving in to them.
Throughout 2010, the Faculty of Invisibility will pursue this practice in a series of productions at Transmission, Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (Innsbruck), Shedhalle (Zürich) and Flutgraben e.V. (Berlin). Public assemblies addressing questions of institutionalisation will be accompanied by a series of letters.
16 April - 15 May 2010
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm (until 7pm on Thursdays during GI)
DARK LIGHT
And yet, at least for a moment in these pages, these lives shine blindingly with a dark light.
Giorgio Agamben: The Author as Gesture
In its current production the Faculty of Invisibility engages itself with processes of institutionalisation. Exposing the mechanisms of these processes by means of quotation, the Faculty of Invisibility tries to put them at play. As speech, gesture or image, the examples assembled draw attention to a place inherent to any institution, one that concerns its foundation.
At Transmission Gallery the Faculty of Invisibility is concerned with the concept of a ‘dark light’: a light that occurs along the lines of bureaucratic acts and texts. With this dark light the doubling of any bureaucratic gesture – at once expressive and inexpressive – is illuminated. Through a rhythm of setting in and out – of being in and out of force - the Faculty of Invisibility strives for a manifestation, which like a dark light, no longer merely exposes or exhibits.
The Faculty of Invisibility was founded in 2006 with The Speech. Guests were invited to open departments within the Faculty of Invisibility relating to their own individual practices, such as the Department of Uncertainty, the Department of Haunting and the Department of Doubt. Two years later in The Invitation, the Faculty of Invisibility explicitly took up the question of its own becoming public: Over the course of three months, a series of letters and postcards sent to 550 addressees known personally to the authors formed a gesture of insistence. The series aimed to create an encounter, which suggested a place situated in the realm of memory rather than offering an attendable exhibition. Also in 2008, the authors of these letters announced the resignation of the Faculty of Invisibility. This act indicated the Faculty of Invisibility’s modality of always being carried out anew. Since then, the Faculty of Invisibility has been less an institution that establishes itself in terms of chronology, continuity and a definite place or position of speech, than a gesture of constituting and withdrawing itself at once. Since its resignation the Faculty of Invisibility has dedicated its work to a practice of instituting that attempts to assemble, quote and execute moments of institutionalisation without giving in to them.
Throughout 2010, the Faculty of Invisibility will pursue this practice in a series of productions at Transmission, Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (Innsbruck), Shedhalle (Zürich) and Flutgraben e.V. (Berlin). Public assemblies addressing questions of institutionalisation will be accompanied by a series of letters.