From the Archives: Installation and Performance 1990 - 2011

Arnold Dreyblatt will be speaking about his work from 1990 - 2011. Arnold Dreyblatt's work includes a wide variety of art forms such as digital installations, contemporary opera, mass public readings and computerized display. His work uses found historical sources material: biographical, often original archive materials and he responds artistically to these. Arnold Dreyblatt will take the audience through his processes and include still and moving image documentation.ee 

"My artistic practises have been realised in a diverse variety of forms and media contexts, such as contemporary opera and interactive media installation, mass public reading, computerised display, and in new and “old” media.  More than 20 years ago, I began an artistic project which continues to be based on “found” historical source materials: biographical, often original archive documents.

During a process of de- and re-constructing these texts over many years, the focus of this project has gradually broadened from an interest in a specific historical dimension (Eastern and Central Europe between the World Wars) to a preoccupation with the subject of archiving and storage itself - how we “write” and store our histories and memories, as an individual and as a culture. Additionally, one is inevitably confronted with the obsessions, particularly in Continental Europe, with a dialectic mechanism of memory and of loss

In this body of work I have attempted to pose questions as to which institutions, (libraries, museums, archives); which technologies (digital, paper)and which methodologies (life writing, biography, history) do we utilise in order to save, collect, and cultivate the past in a "never-ending" battle to protect ourselves from loss and erasure."

This event marks the launch of Art History and Visual Culture at Exeter. Drawing upon internationally recognised research in the Humanities, we are offering  an exciting new portfolio of Combined Honours Programmes. From 2012, students will be able to study for a BA English, Modern Languages or History with Visual Culture making up half of their credits and being named on their degree certificate. Visual culture students learn how to interpret visual worlds in order to understand contemporary and past societies, and how visual practices reflect and engage with belief systems.

Details

2:00 to 4:00pm in LT4, Queen's Building, Streatham Campus, University of Exeter

This is a free event. Lecture followed by a drinks reception.

Please note advance booking is essential via www.arnolddreyblattlecture.eventbrite.com