Evolution 2004

Visionary Architecture: William Menking on Archigram and Superstudio
The Leeds Club

11.15am - 12.30pm
£5.50/£4.50

City of the Hemispheres, Superstudio

In the ’60s and ’70s a number of radical international art/architecture/performance/design groups were formed with the shared goal of releasing architecture from the tight grip of consumer society and the agencies that dictated it. William Menking - writer, curator and professor of City and Regional Planning at the Pratt Institute New York - will discuss two of these visionary groups - Archigram (UK) and Superstudio (Italy). With optimistic spirits these young avant-gardes came to architecture’s rescue rejecting prevailing style with radical theories of anti-design, negative utopia and architectural extremity. Menking’s presentation will feature rarely shown films made by the groups including Superstudio’s Fundamental Acts and a video of the 1972 New Domestic Landscape exhibition.

Recommended events/exhibitions: Chip Lord in Conversation with Antonio Muntadas | City Slivers and Fresh Kills | Performing Architecture
Further Reading: Archigram website | Archigram (Peter Cook, Michael Webb, 1999, Princeton Architectural Press) |
Superstudio: A Life Without Objects (exhibition at Design Museum London) | Superstudio: A Life Without Objects (Peter Lang, William Menking, 2003, Skira Editore)

Chip lord in conversation with Antonio Muntadas
The Leeds Club

1.30 - 3.30pm
£5.50/£4.50

Cadillac Ranch, Ant Farm

Trained as an architect, Chip Lord began his work as a media artist in 1968 as co-founder of Ant Farm, a countercultural art/architecture/video collective in San Francisco. Created as ‘an army of termites in the subsoil of American officialdom’ - for ten years the group undertook introspective investigations into the cultural, social and political substrata. Lord’s most recent work similarly focuses on American myths and icons from the cult of the automobile to baseball advertising, suburbia and television. Spanish born Antonio Muntadas makes installations, public art projects and videos that investigate the mass media and the way information is mediated and manipulated for power, propaganda and profit. Muntadas and Lord will discuss and screen examples of their work, moving through radical approaches to architecture, into video art, politics and the mass media landscape.

Recommended events/exhibitions: Visionary Architecture | Political Advertisement VI (1956-2004)
Further Reading: Chip Lord website | Antonio Muntadas website | Ant Farm 1968-78 (CM Lewallen, 2004, University of California Press) |
Muntadas: On Translation: Museum (Octavi Rofes, Javier Arnaldo, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Jose Lebrero Stals, 2003, Actar)

Political Advertisement VI (1956-2004): Videotape by Muntadas and Reese
The Leeds Club

7 - 8.30pm
Free (advance tickets required)

Political Advertisement VI (1956-2004), Muntadas and Reese

The latest version of an ongoing twenty-year video art collaboration, this one-hour tape spans fifty years of US presidential advertising campaign spots. Since 1984, Muntadas and Reese have expanded, and updated Political Advertisement with every major election. Including the very latest 2004 advertisements, this fascinating anthology documents the selling of the American presidency and reveals the political strategies and manipulative marketing techniques of the televised campaign process. Edited without commentary, an endless stream of candidates, from Dwight Eisenhower to John Kerry, are paraded in public and sold like products. Just four days after the US presidential election result, this screening is sure to resonate with the outcome.

Film: Political Advertisement VI (1956-2004) (Antonio Muntadas and Marshall Reese, 1984-2004, 60 mins, video, b&w/colour, sound)

Recommended events/exhibitions: Chip Lord in Conversation with Antonio Muntadas