Horizontal Class Conversation: Who Are We and What is Re(a)d?

Centering interdisciplinary and collaborative knowledge production: Horizontal Conversations are a format, coming out of Loren Britton’s praxis, to invite scholars, artists and practitioners across disciplines to focus their attention on a word/idea that operates as a shifter (Definition of Shifter in linguistics: A word who’s meaning shifts depending on the context.).
Two recent attempts in this format: Translation Conversation & Encryption Conversation have taken a critical position against the performance of mastery in art and use the artist talk as a forum for sharing knowledge outside of academia. Inviting contributors to present short contributions on Translation and Encryption, one after another, from their own situated perspective creates a “lecture” format that includes as many voices, speaking about “the same” topic notably differently. So far, this format has opened up the syntactic problems of shifters, allowed for cross/inter-disciplinary discussion, learning across knowledge bases and new ways of discussing the problems of naming, and the production of “who knows”.
By challenging the expectation that anyone is a master of their work through a de-colonial (Informed by Julietta Singh’s text: Unthinking Mastery) approach to language, this format of “lecturing” strives to create horizontality across disciplines and privileges the process of learning from multiple perspectives as the primary mode of study.

With Contributions by Loren Britton, Alina Kolar, Shannon Sea, Siegmar Zacharias, Mohammad Salemy, Olave Talks & Zoë Claire Miller

The street newspaper on art and society, wealth and poverty, Arts of the Working Class (AWC) is published by Alina Ana Kolar, María Inés Plaza Lazo and Paul Sochacki for the streets of the world. With  its commitment to the universal basic need for art, the publication has multiple functions—as a social tool for immediate financial reprieve for vendors, as a catalyst for academic news, theories and ideas, and as an art object adorning lush coffee tables, public or domestic. Published every two months, AWC redistributes cultural and economical value within and beyond the art system, in order to dismantle its borders. It contains contributions by artists and thinkers from different fields and in different languages. Its terms are based upon the working class, meaning everyone, and it reports everything that belongs to everyone. Every individual who sells this paper earns money directly. Every artist whose work is advertised, designs its substance with us. Every institution that supports us aids the expansion of artistic exchange with all members and outsiders of society.

@arts_of_the_working_class
@brittonstudio
www.lorenbritton.com

Accessibility:

If it rains we will find a rain protected space for the people attending.
Seating: Chairs and blankets on the floor.
All age groups are welcome.
Languages: English (if not speaking English they are welcome to ask any questions, request explanations, and feel into the space we create, with all its sounds).
Wheelchair and buggy accessibility: The event is held in a public park.
Hearing: With hearing impairments you are welcome to point this out and we can try and accommodate your needs.We try to be as sensible as possible.

Foto docu : Billie Sara Clarken, @billie_clarken