Abstract

Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer.
Peoples History Museum, Manchester (UK).
Friday 14th June 2013

‘Exploring the history and relevance of the pamphlet for contemporary art practice through presentations by speakers and performers.’ RaRa

Dr Gillian Whiteley and Dr Jane Tormey (RaRa), invited Eastwood and Dunne, to participate in the 2013 Radical Aesthetics Radical Arts (RaRa) visual arts research symposium - Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer. The symposium was held on Friday 14th June 2013, at the Peoples History Museum Manchester (UK). The event was supported by Loughborough University (UK).

Eastwood and Dunne’s contribution to the Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer symposium necessitated the occupation of the Coal Store Conference Room to stage their sixth Kurt Schwitters inspired Post Merz Post Haste performance.
Eastwood and Dunne established an improvised mobile print studio at the rear of the symposium space. The print studio was assembled from components transported in a collection of vintage suitcases. Traditional artisan relief printmaking supplemented hand cut paper collage, zerox, and dry letter transfer.

Agitprop publishing activities led to the creation of a large body of new protest inspired collages. Later in the day these were combined with rubberstamped and other hand printed material before being photographed, printed and pamphlet stitched into an improvised limited edition handmade agitprop protest pamphlet. The pamphlet was given away free to all symposium attendees.

Central to the event was the occupation of the symposium space. The performance involved direct interaction with delegates and attendees. Sonic interventions and performance activities punctuated the formal schedule of the symposium thus reiterating the disruptive nature of protest. Other activities included a choreographed rubber-stamping performance, an improvised vintage typewriter symphony, a series of football rattle disruptions, a display of slogans printed on hand held Banners and a statement of artists intentions.

An important aspect of the performance print situation was to use recycled material reconfigured into new imagery as precipitately as possible. Speed, or haste, was fundamental to the process. Post haste simulates urgency and necessitates direct action. Deliberately speeding up the making process increased the sense of urgency and immediacy. It stimulated creative risk taking and uninhibited playful improvisation.

Additional Contextual Information – Dr G. Whiteley & Dr J. Tormey.
The RadicalAesthetics-RadicalArt (RaRa) project was initiated in 2009 at Loughborough University (LU) under the auspices of the Politicized Practice Research Group (PPRG). The RaRa project and its associated book series explores the meeting of contemporary art practice and interpretations of radicality to promote debate, confront convention and formulate alternative ways of thinking about art practice.

Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer
A RadicalAesthetics/RadicalArt (RaRa) event
People’s History Museum, Manchester, FRIDAY June 14th 2013
Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer explores the history and relevance of the pamphlet for contemporary art practice through presentations by speakers and performers that are for or against something – in essence a protest. The event asks: How have artists used the trope of the radical pamphlet? How might it be utilized as a format?

It is written because there is something that one wants to say now, and one believes there is no other way of getting a hearing. Pamphlets may turn on points of ethics or theology but they always have a clear political implication. A pamphlet may be written either for or against somebody or something, but in essence it is always a protest. George Orwell (1948) in British Pamphleteers Volume 1, from the sixteenth century to the French Revolution

Additional details about the delegates and days events
http://www.academia.edu/4004385/RaRa_event_Friday_14th_June_-_Art_Politics_and_the_Pamphleteer