Lev Rubinstein, Poet and Essayist, Moscow (via Zoom)
Sergei Loznitsa, Film Director, Berlin
Andrea Petö, Professor, Central European University (via Zoom)
Mikhail Iampolski, Professor of Comparative Literatures, New York University (via Zoom)

The Event and its "Eventness" as a Philosophical, Historical, and Political Problem

1 December, 2021; 9-18 (Central European Time)
Venue: Södertörn University

Film screening: "The Event" (Sobytie), 2015 Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster.

Programme:

• 9:00-9:30 Welcome and Introduction
• 9:30 Film screening: “The Event” (Sobytie, 74’. 2015, dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
• 12:00-13:00 Lunch
• 13:30-16:00 Round table with presentations (with coffee break)
  

Discussion:
Is it possible for an event to have taken place when at the same time, nothing in fact has happened? Or, for something to have happened when in fact, no event can be said to have taken place? The event is a phenomenon of collective historical experience with profound social, political, economic, and other consequences. Yet paradoxically, the skies over Austerlitz open only once and only to individual experience at the moment of danger. So, how does this metaphysical vision in Tolstoy translate into the present-day problems of theory, history, and politics?

Speakers:

• Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback, Philosophy, Södertörn university
• Maryam Adjam, Ethnology, Department of Culture and Media Studies, Umeå University
• Aleksei Borisionok, Curator, Writer, and Organizer, Vienna and Minsk

• 16:00-17:00 KEYNOTE: Lev Rubinstein (Poet and Essay Writer; Moscow) in conversation with Dmitri Plax (Writer, Artist, Translator and Musician)

• 17:30 Closing Reception for the Whole Year Series ”1991-2021: Thirty Years After”: In connection with the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR. (Please click here more information about the series. Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster.)

The film "The Event" (Sobytie), 2015, can be viewed online anytime during 1 December 2021 on Atoms and Void´s Vimeo channel.
Please visit this website: https://vimeo.com/319731130; Password: the_trouble_with_harry

Film Archive and Technologies of Memory: Making Use, Abuse, and Reuse of Historical Documentary Footage
(in collaboration with Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University)

2 December, 2021; 9-18 (Central European Time)
Venue: Filmhuset, Cinema Mauritz, Lecture Hall and Seminar rooms, Borgvägen 1, Stockholm

Film screening: “The State Funeral” (Gosudarstvennye pokhorony) Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster., 2019

• 09:00-11:15 Film screening “State Funeral” (Gosudarstvennyye Pokhorony, 135´, 2019, dir. Sergei Loznitsa), Venue: Cinema Mauritz
• 11:30-12:30 Talk with the director Sergei Loznitsa by Trond Lundemo
• 12:30-13:30 Presentations by Malin Wahlberg and Natascha Drubek

Discussion:
The moving photographic image has held a powerful role in the production of the past since its invention. This power derives from the media networks established by individual films, engaging sound recordings, texts, and various kinds of images. Sergei Loznitsa’s compilations films, The Trial and State Funeral, demonstrate how Soviet politics relied on these media networks to stage events and form history for the future. Yet, how precisely were these media networks construed? What selections did the Soviet filmmakers make in the construction of history? What were the technological selections of inscription and access in the image archives of the time? How are Loznitsa’s compilations films re-purposing the archival material, and what are their selection principles in re-editing existing films? Is there a subversion of the archival material, and how is it achieved?

• 13:30-14:30 Lunch break
• 14:30-16:30: Presentation by Yulia Gradskova followed by the roundtable discussions on the topics of the day.

Speakers:

• Trond Lundemo, Cinema Studies, Stockholm University
• Malin Wahlberg, Cinema Studies, Stockholm University
• Rebecka Katz Thor, Aesthetics, Memory Studies Project funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Södertörn University
• Yulia Gradskova, History, Södertörn University
• Natascha Drubek, Film and Literature, Freie Universität Berlin and editor-in-chief, Apparatus: Film, Media, and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe
  

Zoom link (applies for the discussion and presentations):

Join Zoom Meeting Länk till annan webbplats.
Meeting ID: 663 9617 8549
Passcode: 400622

The film "The State Funeral” (Gosudarstvennye pokhorony), 2019, can only be viewed on-site.

Art, Narratives and Strategies of Memorialization of Political Violence
(in collaboration with Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts, and Design, Stockholm).

3 December , 2021; 9-18 (Central European Time)
Venue: Södertörn university

Film Screening: “Austerlitz”, 2016 Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster.

• 9:00 Film Screening: “Austerlitz” (94’, 2016, dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
  NB Important for the discussion is Loznitsa’s new award-winning film Babi Yar: Context (121’, 2021). It will not be screened within the framework of this symposium but is included in the Stockholm International Film Festival (10-21 November 2021).We recommend watching the film in film theatres or online.

• 11:00-12:00 Discussion
  With the passage of time, with the disappearance of witnesses, various regimes of post-memory come to replace previous two or three generations’ historical experience with stories and images intended to keep up the transmission of knowledge and to preserve “the consistency of truth”, to use Walter Benjamin’s expression, from damage and disappearance in oblivion. This discussion is about narratives and other forms of presentation of political violence, performative, visual, and “immersive”. How do the rhetoric and technologies of commemoration change with political change and the change of generations?

• 12:00-12:45 Invited presentation: Andrea Petö, Professor, Central European University; Recipient of the All European Academies 2018 Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, Doctor Honoris Causa Södertörn University; Member of the Academic Board, the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre

• 13:00-14:00 Lunch
• 14:00-18:00 Discussion continued (with coffee break)

Roundtable discussion
Participants:

• Magnus Bärtås, Artist, Author and Head of Research, Konstfack - University of Arts, Crafts and Design
• Irina Sandomirskaja, Cultural Studies, Södertörn University
• Tora Lane, Russian Literature and Culture, Aesthetics, Södertörn University
• Natalija Arlauskaite, Film, Photography and Media Studies, Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University
  

Invited presentation: Mikhail Iampolski, Comparative Literatures, New York University 

• 18:00 Mingle

The film “Austerlitz”, 2016, can be viewed online anytime during 3 December 2021 on Atoms and Void´s Vimeo channel.
Please visit this website: https://vimeo.com/252231375; Password: wgsebald-14