Subversive Fragments: Film Screening and Discussion Concerning Notes, Lists, Manifestos, Encyclopaedias and Appendices (In person and Online Film Screening and Discussion – 28th June 2022)
“Exploding Appendix is the Subsidiary Remnants of a philosophical masterpiece. Part wasteland of the once refined, part architecture built of dismembered pieces.”
The deployment of fragmented texts has often been central to 19th, 20th and 21st Century experiments in writing. On the one hand, encyclopaedias and manifestosoften assemble text for an overriding objective: To re-organise all knowledge (in the case of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopaedia) or for social and economic change (in Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto). But sometimes, as in the case of the artistic manifestos of Futurists, Dadaists, and Surrealists, or the assembled notes of Walter Benjamin’s The Arcade’s Project, the fragmented text is harder to place and can often works against a general cohesion. In their forward to Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin write that this “is something that could be realised only indirectly, through “cunning”: it was not the great men and celebrated events of traditional historiography, but rather the “refuse” and “detritus” of history, the half concealed, variegated traces of daily life of “the collective”, that was to be the object of study, and with the aid of methods more akin—above all, in their dependence on chance—to the methods of the nineteenth-century collector of antiques and curiosities, or indeed to the method of he nineteenth century ragpicker, than to those of the modern historian.” This subversive and indirect attitude towards fragments of text will guide our discussion. We will open with a screening of The Fourth Rehearsal for an Exploding Appendix Manifesto, followed by a presentation and general discussion about text. The session should be relatively flexible, so if anyone has anything they have written or created that they think is relevant and that they would like to share, feel free to bring it along. If you have any questions about this feel free to message me at explodingappendix@gmail.com
This session will take place both online via Zoom and in person at The Artist Residence, Brighton, UK. The Artists Residence can be found on 33 Regency Square, Brighton, BN1 2GG. Join us in Venue from 7pm and online from 730pm. To book a free place in the venue, click here. For any questions please message me at explodingappendix@gmail.com
This session will be run by Bradley Tuck and take place on the 28th June 2022 from 19:30 – 22:30 (UK time). If you have any questions please message me at explodingappendix@gmail.com
