Symposium
16 – 17 Nov 2017

Over and Over and Over Again

Re-Enactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts and Theory
Since the 1990s, re-enactment has emerged as a key issue in the field of artistic production, in theoretical discourse, and in the socio-political sphere. Current re-enactments question the ability of the present to unpack, embody, and disentangle the past. Thus, to re-enact is to experience the past by reactivating either a particular cultural heritage or unexplored utopias. To re-enact means not to restore but to challenge the past – to not merely repeat it, but to interpret and translate it – in the present and for the present – or for the future.  History thereby enters a special temporal dimension, that of a possible and perpetual becoming, opening a space for invention and renewal.

The symposium investigates the issue of re-enactment through a discussion at once conceptual and practical. How, and to what extent, does recent history engage in a creative dialogue with a more distant past supposedly reactualized through re-enactment? This process of creative repetition branches out into at least three directions: (1) the return/survival of the past understood as generating meaning and values for both present and potential future/s, in terms of what one could call a symbolic archaeology; (2) an epistemological-axiological challenge to the traditional dichotomy between true and false, original and copy; and (3) a performative bodily practice that physically re-stages events.

Methodologically, the notion of re-enactment will be approached from three directions: the archive, the arts, and curatorial practice.

Venue

ICI Berlin
(Click for further documentation)

Organized by

Cristina Baldacci
Clio Nicastro
Arianna Sforzini

In English

First published on: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/over-and-over/
Rights: © ICI Berlin
Cite as: Over and Over and Over Again: Re-Enactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts and Theory, symposium, ICI Berlin, 16–17 November 2017 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e171116>