Symposium: Changing Perspectives on Contemporary Conflict 18 April 2010

Overview FACT hosts a symposium on the changing nature of war, where speakers and audience members are asked to come together to discuss and share their perspectives on various conflicts. Speakers include internationally renowned Israeli-born, UK-based artist Oreet Ashery, the Palestinian writer, Samir El-Youssef who authored The Illusion of Return (Halban 2007), Professor Andrew Hoskins who penned Televising War: From Vietnam to Iraq (Continuum 2004), and Kurdish Iraqi artist, performer and curator, Adalet Garmiany, amongst others.

Context Despite the growth of social networks, the majority of citizens still experience conflict in a mediated way. From 24 hour news channels to perpetual RSS feeds, war and it’s varying manifestations are all encompassing, but still, everyday individuals still seem to detach themselves from this very thought. On this occasion, FACT brings together speakers whose lives and practices have been shaped by a radically personal relationship with war. The speakers will relay these stories to the audience, who will then be invited to contribute to a conversation, which is more often than not, relegated to elected officials, and media outlets. As technology continues to splinter and fragment society, it is more important than ever to come together, and to take part in this participatory dialogue.

13.00-13.15 Introductions Compere: Liam Fogarty

13.15-13:30 MyWar: Participation in an Age of War FACT exhibition curator, Heather Corcoran presents war as an object of collective participation in the modern age, and reveals the launch of the accompanying exhibition catalogue for MyWar.

13:30-13:55 Modern Conflict and Fiction with Samir El-Youssef Palestinian writer and cultural commentator, Samir El-Youssef spent his childhood until the age of 9 displaced in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Here, he discusses how the relationship between his personal experience with war and writing fiction.

13:55-14:15 Conflict and Artistic Practice with Oreet Ashery Can art be used as a device for political change? Interdisciplinary Israeli/British artist, Oreet Ashery explores how conflict can act as an agent of political change.

14:15-14:40 Breakout Session: The Language of Conflict with Oreet Ashery The audience will be asked to respond to a scenario set by Oreet, which looks at the use of terminology in situations of conflict. Each group will be led by the event moderator, or a member of staff from FACT, Cornerhouse, or ArtRole. These may include: Heather Corcoran, Omar Kholeif, Adalet Garmiany, Sarah Perks, and Liam Fogarty.

14:40-15:00 Coffee/TeaBreak

15:00-15:30 Shifting Representations of Media Warfare with Andrew Hoskins Professor Hoskins looks at the divergent representations, and media sanitizations of the body in modern warfare, comparing key images and representations, utilizing different wars as illustrative examples.

15:30-15:50 Response Session: Lead by FACT curator, Karen Newman and Audience

15:50-16.05 Contemporary Art Iraq: Sarah Perks Sarah Perks gives the audience an overview of her experience in conflicted Iraq, and introduces them to the jointly curated exhibition between Cornerhouse and ArtRole, Contemporary Art Iraq.

16.05-16.20 Coffee/Tea Break

16.20-16.40 Break Out Session with Adalet Garmiany Kurdish artist and curator, Adalet Garmiany tells the audience a descriptive narrative of his own experience of warfare. Audience members will be offered the opportunity to draw a detailed sketch of the scene being described to them, which will subsequently be put on display for the public in the Media Lounge. The performance will end with Adalet playing a selection of musical instruments, which relate to his experiences of conflict.

16.40-17:00 Panel Discussion & Questions Time permitting, the audience will be asked to respond

Speaker Biographies

Professor Andrew Hoskins Andrew Hoskins is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on the theoretical and empirical investigation of today’s ‘new media ecology’ and the nature of and the challenges for individual, social, and cultural memory in this environment. He is founding Editor-in-Chief of the Sage journal of Memory Studies (mss.sagepub.com) and founding Co-Editor of the Sage journal of Media, War & Conflict (mwc.sagepub.com).

His books include: Televising War: From Vietnam to Iraq (Continuum, 2004), Television and Terror: Conflicting Times and the Crisis of News Discourse (co-authored, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), the co-edited Save As...Digital Memories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and his co-authored War and Media: The Emergence of Diffused War provides a new framework for the analysis of the dynamic relationship between contemporary media and warfare will be published by Polity Press in June 2010. He is currently working on The Mediatization of Memory, forthcoming with MIT Press, 2011. Samir El-Youssef Samir is a Palestinian writer and critic, who was born in Rashida, a Palestinian Refugee camp in southern Lebanon, where he lived until he was ten. In 2004, he co-authored a book with Israeli author Etgar Keret, called Gaza Blues: Different Stories. His latest book, The Illusion of Return, published in 2007 was his first novel written in English. Samir’s essays and reviews have also appeared in major Arabic periodicals and newspapers such as the -based Al-Hayat, as well as on openDemocracy.net, The Guardian's Comment is Free and in the New Statesman. In 2005, the Swedish branch of the organisation International PEN granted El-Youssef the Tucholsky award, named after Kurt Tucholsky and given each year to a writer or publisher who is either being persecuted or threatened, or living in exile. Oreet Ashery Oreet Ashery is a London based, interdisciplinary visual artist. Ashery’s practice engages with socio-political paradigms and tends to include participatory and delegated elements. Interested in notions of subjectivity and authenticity, Ashery will frequently produce work as a male character. Those have included; an orthodox Jewish man, an Arab man, a black man, a Norwegian postman, a large farmer and most recently a false messiah. Ashery exhibits, performs, intervenes and screens her work extensively in an international context, both in highly established art contexts, as well as in highly experimental public spaces or situations. Ashery’s work has been discussed in numerous art, academic and cultural publications and books, in various languages. Ashery had published three books in 2009; The Novel of Nonel and Vovel, a joint graphic novel and an expanded project with the artist (Charta), Dancing with Men; interactive performances, interactions and other artworks (Live Art Development Agency), and Staying; Dream, Bin, Soft Stud and Other Stories (Artangel), a participatory project with women seeking asylum in the UK due to their sexual orientation. Ashery is an AHRC fellow in the drama department at Queen Mary University. She takes parts in talks and panel discussions on a regular basis and has been engaged with educational work and projects in the public sphere for many years. Adalet Garmiany Adalet R. Garmiany is originally from Kurdistan/Iraq and is now resident in the UK. Adalet is an artist, performer and musician and is the director of ArtRole, a UK-based contemporary arts organisation developing international cultural exchanges with the Middle East. In Kurdistan he was a lecturer of art at the Institute of Fine Art of Erbil, he was also involved as a Dervish Def (Kurdish drum) player, in a Qadri group, as well as a painter and sculptor, activities that influenced his current art practice.

Heather Corcoran Heather Corcoran (CA/UK) is a curator/producer with a specialist in media art and music, currently working as Curator at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in . Recently she has worked at Space Media Arts in London and InterAccess Electronic Media Arts in Toronto, as well as producing a number of freelance projects. She works hands on with technology and technology communities - currently a Developer of the free software project pure:dyne, the GNU/Linux distribution for media art; co- organizer of Dorkbot London; and a lurking-only member of OpenLab. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Media at Ryerson University in Toronto. Sarah Perks Sarah is Programme & Engagement Director at Cornerhouse, Manchester’s international centre for contemporary visual arts and cinema. She is responsible for strategic management of the team including all education programmes and communications. Sarah is also a director of Northern Film Network and a freelance lecturer and writer specialising in Asian art and cinema. Sarah has completed a Common Purpose Matrix Leadership course and led a Cultural Leadership Programme research project on personalisation, audiences and organisational culture.

Karen Newman Karen Newman is a curator at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology). She has curated solo shows at FACT of the work of Mark Lewis, Anna Lucas, and most recently Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Her next show, Persistence of Vision is a collaboration with the Nicolaj Contemporary Art Center, Denmark, which looks at the interplay of vision, memory, and media.

Liam Fogarty Liam is a freelance journalist, and consultant with a wealth of experience. He reported on Liverpool for the BBC for more than 20 years. After leaving the BBC, he lead the campaign for a Mayoral referendum for Liverpool.