Sunday School #3: Conspiracies

Event

Sunday School #3: Conspiracies

that they think we're ignorant of

16 March 2008

Entrance: €7

Sunday School is a Sunday afternoon event about art, research, and media phenomena. Sunday School #3 deals with Conspiracies, They Think We’re Ignorant Of.

Within the field of (mass) psychology, much has been written about the human tendency to concoct conspiracies. Conspiracy theories, after all, confirm our fears, but simultaneously bring renewed order to the chaos of the world. This edition of Sunday School lists the ingredients of a good ‘conspiracy theory’ and offers a platform to speakers who have each developed their own perspective on how media, multinationals, and politicians attempt to influence our perception of reality. Featuring, among others: science journalist Peter Burger, artist Debra Solomon, spin watcher Eveline Lubbers, and frontier scientist Rick Devente. Visual contributions by Martin Hansen (Paradise Drift, 2006, 13′) and Sterling Ruby (Cook, 2003, 1’26”). Presented by Klaas Kuitenbrouwer.

“Assume that nothing in the world happens coincidentally or by accident and that everything is always premeditated. Then purposefully deny the existing and generally accepted explanation for what happens. Subsequently, take a handful of insignificant facts and provide these with new, exaggerated meaning. Appoint an enemy and ascribe as many bad intentions as possible to this enemy. Discredit the influential persons who endorse the accepted explanation for what happens. Label them as stupid or bad, or make them part of the conspiracy. Stretch the statements and proof of experts in such a way that they will support your own theory. Avoid contact and discussion with critics. Discredit them if they become too troublesome. Warn people for new dangers and call out for alertness.” – Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527

Peter Burger Debra Solomon Eveline Lubbers Martin Hansen Sterling Ruby Klaas Kuitenbrouwer

Peter Burger

― Author

Peter Burger researches journalism, fake news, urban legends, and other folklore. He also teaches science journalism and source sourcing. Peter Burger is sought out by media outlets as an expert on fake news.

Debra Solomon

― Artist

Debra Solomon is an Amsterdam-based artist, researcher and educator. She is the founder of Urbaniahoeve Social Design Lab for Urban Agriculture, which has developed food-system infrastructures at several public space locations in the Hague and Amsterdam,. Debra Solomon’s early public space-related work included CULIBLOG.ORG, a weblog about food, food culture, and the culture that grows our food, a pop-up concept restaurant exclusively serving micro-greens and the Lucky Mi Fortune Cooking project in collaboration with the Freehouse Collective - a free kitchen that ‘super-used’ surplus from the Netherlands’ biggest outdoor market. As an expert in food-system infrastructure Solomon co-curated in 2007 the Edible City (Dutch Architecture Institute), the Netherlands’ first exhibition on food and the built environment, and was food domain expert of the Designs of the Times (DOTT 07) Urban Farming Project, in Newcastle (UK). In 2008 as designer invitee to the international design biennial at Saint-Etienne’s (FR), Solomon exhibited community tools for food and sustainability (Communauté Choucroute) at City Eco Lab.

Eveline Lubbers

― Author

Eveline Lubbers is an independent investigator and one of the founders of the Undercover Research Group and Spinwatch. She is the author of Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark, Corporate and Police spying on Activists (Pluto, 2012) and the initiator & contributing editor of Battling Big Business: Countering Greenwash, Front Groups and Other Forms of Corporate Bullying (2002). She was a research fellow at the University of Bath, setting up Tobacco Tactics with Andy Rowell.

Martin Hansen

― Artist

Martin Hansen (Germany) attended the Braunschweig Art Academy. He makes experimental films, videos and installations and works as a cameraman, lighting technician and cutter.

Sterling Ruby

― Artist

Sterling Ruby (b. 1972) is an American artist who works in a large variety of media including ceramics, painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, video, and textiles. Often, his work is presented in large and densely packed installations. The artist has cited a diverse range of sources and influences including aberrant psychologies (particularly schizophrenia and paranoia), urban gangs and graffiti, hip-hop culture, craft, punk, masculinity, violence, public art, prisons, globalization, American domination and decline, waste and consumption.

Klaas Kuitenbrouwer

― Moderator

Klaas Kuitenbrouwer teaches, writes and gives lectures on different aspects of interactive media and various crossroads of culture and technology. He plays improvised music and develops sonic games in OORBEEK. Since 2009 he works at the Virtual Platform, and develops crossover programs to share useful knowledge and clever practices between people from different flavours of electronic culture. From 1999 till 2008 he has been developing, assembling and coaching workshops for Mediamatic – in which participants together with invited makers and thinkers develop concepts and applications of current (media) technologies. Kuitenbrouwer studied Contemporary History at the University of Utrecht, became an artist for a while, and as such he mainly made radio, interactive theatrical installations, and performed improvised music and texts.

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