As part of PSL 2017 on the theme of Democracy & Dissent, the cohort was tasked to engage in a methodological lab entitled Democracy Simulation. The methodological workshop was led by Penelope Papailias, Mitsos Bilalis and Ioanna Laliotou. Cohort participants presented their proposals on the last day of the lab on July 4, 2017.
PROMPT
You will work in pairs to *propose* an intervention into a critical event (a media event, an artistic event, an intellectual/academic one, an everyday situation) in which in one way or another democracy in your opinion is on the line. This event could be something that has been haunting you from your research. It could be something that has pressed itself upon you as a concern from your activism or from navigating everyday life from whatever subject position.
We want you to probe this problem, to crack it open, with some of the theoretical concepts from the seminars. Of course, those readings, seminars and conversations could also lead you to the critical event you want to interrogate.
You will propose an intervention, trying to brainstorm a 'format". We do not want to fetishize new "digital tools", leading you to focus your time on technical finetuning. What is really important to us is the shock the logics of knowledge production and circulation, hierarchies of expertise, knowledge scarcity, commodification, etc. that is in process and that directly affects communication, political community, scholarship, etc. The question then is how in political, not practical terms, do we "write" today?
EVENT + CONCEPT + FORMAT = DESIGN PROPOSAL
Your 15-minute presentation could take the form of a short essay, a powerpoint, a photo essay, an explainer vlog, a syllabus, a short video, a machinima, an activity for children, an art exhibit, a performance... We like to think of this as the start of an conversation that will extend beyond and after the lab, and we will be very interested if these little "seeds" sprout after we all leave Paou.
You will work in pairs to *propose* an intervention into a critical event (a media event, an artistic event, an intellectual/academic one, an everyday situation) in which in one way or another democracy in your opinion is on the line. This event could be something that has been haunting you from your research. It could be something that has pressed itself upon you as a concern from your activism or from navigating everyday life from whatever subject position.
We want you to probe this problem, to crack it open, with some of the theoretical concepts from the seminars. Of course, those readings, seminars and conversations could also lead you to the critical event you want to interrogate.
You will propose an intervention, trying to brainstorm a 'format". We do not want to fetishize new "digital tools", leading you to focus your time on technical finetuning. What is really important to us is the shock the logics of knowledge production and circulation, hierarchies of expertise, knowledge scarcity, commodification, etc. that is in process and that directly affects communication, political community, scholarship, etc. The question then is how in political, not practical terms, do we "write" today?
EVENT + CONCEPT + FORMAT = DESIGN PROPOSAL
Your 15-minute presentation could take the form of a short essay, a powerpoint, a photo essay, an explainer vlog, a syllabus, a short video, a machinima, an activity for children, an art exhibit, a performance... We like to think of this as the start of an conversation that will extend beyond and after the lab, and we will be very interested if these little "seeds" sprout after we all leave Paou.
