Artefact festival 2012

Artefact festival for art & media
14 > 23 FEB 2012
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
STUK arts centre Leuven, Belgium

programme online: www.artefact-festival.be

The title and theme of this eleventh edition of Artefact is The Social Contract. This term has been used in political and philosophical theories since the 17th century, but still emerges regularly today, in interviews with politicians, political party programs, debates, … Even the early adopters of the social contract theory, such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, used and interpreted the concept in different ways. The classical interpretation concerns the relation between the individual as a citizen and a political entity, in which the individual sacrifices part of his freedom and power in order for the state to offer for instance safety and social and economic security. But what is the position of the social contract in our current times of crisis in a globalized world?

One of the festival's main questions is whether we can renegotiate or reform those 'contracts'. Can we cancel them, rewrite them? The programme focuses on different forms of resistance and imagination. With exhibitions, performances, debates and meetings with international artists, we look for the position and alternatives for The Social Contract in our contemporary information and network society.

expo | Julieta Aranda / Anton Vidokle - Christin Lahr - Ariel Orozco - irational.org - Vlatka Horvat - Artist Placement Group - Jeanne van Heeswijk -Constant - Kitchain - Pedro Reyes - Jimmie Durham - Elín Hansdóttir - Samuel Bianchini - Herman Asselberghs - Radek Community - Lucy Kimbell / Andrew Barry - Geoff Cox - INTK - !Mediengruppe Bitnik - Sarah Vanhee - plan b - | performance | Anna Rispoli - Davis Freeman - Heine Avdal / Yukiko Shinozaki - plan b - Ehud Darash - Anna Mendelssohn - | talks | e-flux Time/Bank - Rudi Laermans - Frank Vandenbroucke - Antoon Vandevelde- Ewald Engelen - Dirk Holemans - Mohamed Ridouani - Peter Tom Jones - | kitchain cook & meet | Sarah Vanhee + Kristien Van den Brande - Femke Snelting + Kate Rich - Davis Freeman - Rudi Laermans + Antoon Vandevelde - | labo nights | Scroobius Pip - Rustie - Demdike Stare - Bugge Wesseltoft / Henrik Schwarz - Nils Frahm - Ansatz der Maschine - William Hooker - Phantogram