Excessively Big Gestures

In the 2017/18 academic year, the transdisciplinary lecture series will pursue excessiveness. Interesting here is what is deemed inappropriate and simply too much in the form of speech, literary writing, and courses of action in the performative arts (including comedy). Or in the realm of queer-feminist activism, and the consciously fanatical, provocative manifestos that repeatedly accompany these articulations, such as Mina Loy’s Feminist Manifesto (1914), Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto (1967), Bikini Kill’s Riot Grrrl Manifesto (1991), Beatriz Preciado’s Manifiesto contrasexual (2000), Virginie Despentes’ King Kong Théorie (2006), or the feminist migrant collective MAIZ’s deployment of Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto An-tropófago (1928).

Excessiveness can be found in overshooting the forms and formats through unexpected du-ration, or with litanies and persistent repetitions. A narrowing in the direction of doing, in the framework of an artistic mode of articulation, can also be excessive. Protest forms can be addressed in this way as well – the emphasis should lie on the linguis-tic, on time-based gestures and on activism. We are on the lookout for big gestures that evoke the excessiveness inherent in normative gender relations, such as the deed of a figure like Jeanne Dielman in Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film by the same name. The excessive act here follows an exaggerated accurateness in the daily actions of a housewife and sex work-er, which is gradually interfused with minimal disturbances and consequently becomes the-matized in diverse, but intertwined levels of in/appropriateness.

In the scope of this lecture series, strategies of pooling attention through risky actions in gender-critical terms should be reflected upon, e.g. how existing social asymmetries can be made visible through reversal or escalation without being populistic. Another matter of interest is how possible trivialization as provocation can be met, and also, to what degree an adoption of heroism can be critically countered.

About the Lecture Series:
The „Art – Research – Gender“ lecture series will be held at the University of Applied Arts Vienna over the 2016/17 academic year and can be taken as a course as well. It is organized by the Office of Gender Issues.

Scientists and artists of all disciplines are invited to present their perspectives on the ques-tions raised above. We particularly welcome submissions by young researchers – from the area of their thesis, for example. Speakers are paid compensation of € 300 and can claim reimbursement of travel costs.

Usually, eight lectures are selected for each academic year, which are held on Wednesdays at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. We expect talks to take up to 60 minutes; a discussion follows.

Concept & Organization: Office of Gender Issues

Please submit your proposal by email on or before April 30, 2017, to gender@uni-ak.ac.at
Please include:
• Working title
• Abstract (300 words)
• Short biography
• Your contact data

Submissions are accepted in German or English.