Site can be viewed here.
Self-organized Seminar was a project with several art graduate students who wanted to problematize the professionalization of their art degree, labor in the neoliberal university, and find ways way of generating a collective practice in a atomizing environment. You can see a few projects below.
See a short introduction for more on the project:
Autonomous Research within and/or Beneath the Ruins; Or, We are Finally Getting our Feet Wet
In December 2011 we held a seminar on institutional critique with faculty, graduate students, and artist from around Iowa City. We created a reader for the event, which is available here can be downloaded here, all in one pdf.
A more in depth documentation of the seminar can be viewed on the project website.
***
In December 2012 SOS organized an event at the Midwest Matrix printmaking conference in order to problematize the uncritical embrace of the prestigious printmaking degree at the U of Iowa. We asked conference attendees and fellow artists to print their debt on an photoshopped image of a brain-factory.
from the flier passed out at the event:
In the Shadow of Debt: Participatory Relief!
To state our personal academic debt declares publicly our vulnerability to a financial and political system that we share with millions. Debt is a global condition, suffered by people around the world. Acknowledging our academic debt publicly enables us to connect ourselves, as debt-ridden graduate students, with the precarious everywhere.
We ask you to join us in making our precarity evident — to wear our debt on our sleeves and take steps towards building a culture that problematizes the value of the graduate degree, as well as gestures towards a larger movement.
