This year, a new series of reading workshops will allow us to look collectively at the issue of “Performing opposition”, which will also serve as the title of the next Printemps des Laboratoires, an international event that will be held in June 2015 at les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers.

Workshop #6
This workshop in presence of Dora Garcia will be the occasion to analyze, through an extract of Judith Butler's book Excitable Speech, the role of speech in opposition in public space, whereas previous sessions allowed us to precise the perception and definition of public space, through the following texts: L'infini saturé: espaces publics, pouvoirs, artistes by Michel Guet, Technology and Ideology: the case of the telegraph by James Carey, Manifeste accélérationniste by Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, L'espace public et les médias by Peter Dalghren and Le nouveau pouvoir statistique by Antoinette Rouvroy.
We will study together the last chapter of Excitable Speech by Judith Butler, where we are confronted with the idea that language belongs to the powers we oppose, and that therefore the most logical form of resistance would be silence. But abuse of power is exercised by denying the capacity of speech, and therefore we must speak; and the authority of our speech will be given by expropriating the dominant, "authorized" discourse, resignificating it in a subversive way.

Performing Opposition
Remarkable oppositions are born in public spaces. Oppositions reconfigure the actions that are performed there either by artists or by activists, whose work makes these places visible.Through antagonistic situations which give rise to different forms of opposition, protest, appropriation and creation, open, shared places are created. These are the public spaces we wish to examine.
This series of 15 text analysis workshops will explore various contexts such as the demonstrations and uprisings that have been gathering steam over the last ten years and virtual space on the internet which has largely shifted the public space paradigm; it constitutes a tool to support and spread these revolts as well as a reserve of information and source of private data and the ideal platform for control.
We are interested in how artists work directly on these questions, leaving behind the realm of art institutions and favouring public spaces that contain the questions or let them overflow, inventing forms of protest and confrontation as tools of shared radical experience.

The reading workshops are open to all. They take place every two weeks, on Thursdays, between 4 to 6 pm, on inscription. To get the texts and the summaries of the sessions, as well as to participate, contact Clara Gensburger at c.gensburger@leslaboratoires.org

Dates: Thursdays 16 and 30 October, 13 and 27 November, 11 December, 8 and 22 January, 5 and 19 February, 5 and 19 March, 2, 16 and 30 April (from 4 pm to 6 pm)