The Infrastructure Summit
THE INFRASTRUCTURE SUMMIT
Sat 3.9.2016, 10.30AM– 2AM
Sun 4.9.2016, 11AM – 6PM
OPENING PERFORMANCE
Things
that surround us, Public in Private / Clément Layes
Fri 2.9.2016, 8PM
USF Verftet, Bergen, Norway
freethought‘s programme for the 2016 Bergen Assembly was launched with The Infrastructure Summit, a two-day discursive and performative event with internationally renowned writers, curators and artists investigating the nature of infrastructure in times of economic disparity, ecological catastrophe, expulsion and forced migration. Talks and intensive discussions led by the freethought collective were complemented by food, film, live performance and music.
PROGRAMME
Sat 3.9.
10.30AM– 6.30PM Presentations and discussion from Irit Rogoff, Adrian Heathfield, Elizabeth Povinelli, Tom McCarthy, Massimiliano Mollona, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Nora Sternfeld, Fred Moten, Wu Tsang, Hypatia Vourloumis, and Stefano Harney.
Sun 4.9.
11AM – 6PM Presentations and discussion from Tiziana Terranova, Louis Moreno, Andy Merrifield, Stefano Harney, Arjuna Neuman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar and The Partisan Café: Nora Sternfeld, Jenny Moore, Freja Bäckman, Kabir Carter, Tora Endestad Bjørkheim, Johnny Herbert, and Arne Skaug-Olsen.
Aside from each day’s programme of presentations and discussions, The Infrastructure Summit hosted several performative, reflective and communal moments over the weekend:
The debut screening of a new anime film Delete Beach, produced for The Bergen Assembly by artist Phil Collins, took place in Cinemateket USF. Combining elements of sci-fi and fantasy, the film imagined the infrastructural future of a Bergen without oil.
The Norwegian premiere of Things that surround us, a performance by Public in Private / Clément Layes, took place in the black box of Studio USF in partnership with BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen). Challenging the complex choreography of everyday life and our habitual relationships with objects, seemingly inert gadgets were brought to life, subconscious routines were shattered and new relations to the world were formed.
Conceived specially for The Infrastructure Summit, INFRASONIC was a night of electronic music in Sardinen USF inspired by and exploring the sonic dimensions of the infrastructural condition with a multimedia live performance from electronic and dub composers Hallucinator (Edward George and Anna Piva), a live set from artist Hannah Sawtell, plus DJ sets from Paul Purgas and Louis Moreno (freethought).
On both days of The Infrastructure Summit, lunch was provided by TASC Ablett & Brafield. Bergen-based artists Amber Ablett and Stacy Brafield’s work and research based around social choreography; they also ran the TASC Studio Kitchen, located within Hordaland Kunstsenter (Bergen, Norway), which operated as a café, a space for investigation and a studio for thoughts.
