Sylvère Lotringer | Topology of Autonomy

Preceded by a tour of community gardens in Boston

Sylvère Lotringer will address the notion of autonomy, its planting, plotting, and propagation as the means to imagine and propose alternative relations to land, history, politics, and art. Lotringer’s talk expands the discourse initiated through the international archive platform, the exhibition Disobedience: An Ongoing Video Archive.

The tour will explore the history of community gardens in Boston as sites of resistance against the increasing privatization of resources in the city. Many of Boston’s gardens are the result of grassroots struggles for community land control and food security. As sites of intense cooperation, community gardens can be seen as a training ground for new forms of social solidarity, political self-organization, and ecological consciousness. UPDATE: tour sold out as of Friday, March 30.

Sylvère Lotringer is the general editor of the seminal book series Semiotext(e). As a literary and cultural theorist, his major contribution was introducing French theory to the United States. In 1979, Lotringer traveled to Italy to document the post-Marxist Autonomia movement, which resulted in the special publication Autonomia—Post-Political Politics. Lotringer is a Professor of Foreign Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland and Professor Emeritus at Columbia University.

Schedule of events:
09:30a–12:30p — Bus Tour: Community gardens in Boston. RSPV required.

01:30p–03:00p — Lecture: Topology of Autonomy

This public program is part of the Disobedience: An Ongoing Video Archive, installed at the Media Lab until April 15, 2012. The Archive with its program is part of a cross-platform initiative curated by ACT Professor Gediminas Urbonas, ACT Fellow Nomeda Urbonas, and Marco Scotini from Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan. The tour of Boston’s community gardens is a component of the thesis project of Scott Berzofsky (SMACT 2012).

Seating for the public lecture is on  first-come, first-served basis. Free and open to the public.