MMU | MIRIAD | Eduardo Paolozzi Re-readings - Conference and Exhibition February 2011

Eduardo Paolozzi Re-readings

A one-day conference at Manchester Metropolitan University

Friday, 18th February 2011

This one-day conference, conceived by the Visual Culture Research Centre within MIRIAD, shed new light on the graphic works of Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005). The conference sought to make a significant contribution to the reappraisal of this seminal artist/co-founder of the Independent Group. His work was included in two recent major exhibitions, "Eduardo Paolozzi: The Jet Age Compendium" at Raven Row, London (2009) and "CRASH: Homage to JG Ballard" at the Gagosian, London (2010).

The conference findings supplemented an exhibition by Paolozzi at the Holden Gallery at MMU (16 Feb - 11 Mar). Paolozzi's edition, GENERAL DYMANIC F.U.N. (1970), comprises 50 screen prints and photolithographs and is introduced by his friend and collaborator, J.G. Ballard. On publication, this work was welcomed as Pop Art, but through Ballard's eyes it was closely related to his own literary project that sought to analyze the media landscape for its libidinous content.

Taking the metaphor of re-reading – speakers reconsidered Paolozzi's work from a variety of points of view, including the significance of his collaboration with Ballard.

Speaker's Biographies

David Brittain (Research Fellow, MIRIAD, MMU) is a writer and curator specializing in photography and magazines. He is co-author of 'The Jet Age Compendium: Paolozzi at Ambit' (Four Corners Books, 2009) and curator of 'Eduardo Paolozzi: Jet Age Compendium' at Raven Row, London, 2009

Professor Allen Fisher (MMU) is a poet and artist specialising in composition and theory in British and American contemporary poetry; installation and drawing as praxis and British and American Fluxus.

Dr Crista-Maria Lerm Hayes is Head of Research Graduate School at University of Ulster. She specializes in visual legacies of writers such as Joyce, Beckett, W.G. Sebald, while also considering the historiography of art and curating.

Dr Joanne Murray (Birkbeck College London) recently completed her PhD on 'New Brutalism and J.G. Ballard' and lectures at Kingston University

Jon Oberlander is Professor of Epistemics in the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics. He is founder-Director of the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance and Director of Inspace, an instrumented living lab and exhibition space, specialising on the study of human interaction – with humans, robots, and smart spaces. He works at the intersection of computational linguistics and cognitive science, aiming to develop cognitively- and affectively-motivated models of the ways in which differing people produce fluent discourse.

Dr John Sears (MMU) is the author of 'Reading George Szirtes' (Bloodaxe 2008) and Stephen King's Gothic (University of Wales Press 2011, forthcoming). He has written widely on contemporary fiction and poetry, and is currently co-editing a special issue of European Journal of American Culture on the San Francisco avant-garde publishing venture RE/Search.

Robin Spencer is an art historian and former senior curator at the School of Art History at the University of St. Andrews. He is author of several key essays about Paolozzi and editor of the book 'Eduardo Paolozzi: Writings and Interviews' (OUP, 2000)

Andrea Zapp is an internationally exhibited practitioner and Senior Research Fellow for Media Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, School of Art and Media. She creates digital 'Networked Installation Stages', art installations that mix and reference real, virtual and online spaces. Recent research also includes 'Media, Miniature and Shifting Scales' as another reflective format of installation architecture and digital habitat.