APRES COUP Postmoderne et postmodernisme

Each session has as its goal to cross disciplines and fields around two guests and a common question. The format chosen for these evenings is that of a dialogue, sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory between these guests whose points of view on the topic at hand are necessarily distinct.

Après coup offers a critical approach to current news centered around specific events that are revealing of some distinctive aspects of the contemporary period. Such critique in action, pragmatic in nature, also has as its object the renewal of its tools and concepts.

The term « après coup, » it should be noted, refers to three different phenomena in psychoanalysis, marketing, and common use, respectively, all of which have caught our attention in that they may foster three critical approaches. In psychoanalysis, « après-coup » refers to the formation of a trauma in two steps: a trauma takes place, yet it always manifests itself afterwards, through an apparently insignificant event that makes it resurface. A current symptom does not solely refers to a recent event, but to a complex of things that begs for analysis.

In marketing, a « coup » (a « stunt ») has to do with a way to devise an event and publicize it. The time coming after the event (the « après-coup ») would thus be a time of exposure of what comes out of or emerges from the events themselves, beyond the hype and drum-beating. From a critical standpoint, one could thus talk of « symptomatic events, » with the idea of looking for potential invention and novelty that may have escaped their very protagonists or audiences. Finally, « après coup » commonly points to what happens « once the deed is done. » Thus understood, the practice coming « afterwards » encourages very simply to pass the word on current works or research findings with significant critical impact, but which remain under the radar.

The sessions are organized by Mark Alizart, Catherine Chatelet, Élie During, Bastien Gallet, Laurent Jeanpierre, Christophe Kihm, Patrice Blouin, and Dork Zabunyan.

Mark ALIZART is the assistant manager of the Palais de Tokyo. He has co-edited the three volumes of Fresh Théorie with Christophe Kihm (Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer/Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, 2005, 2006, 2007) as well as the exhibition catalog for Traces du Sacré with Jean de Loisy and Angela Lampe (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2008). He has also published an interview with Stuart Hall (Paris: Éditions Amsterdam, 2007).

Patrice BLOUIN was born in Périgueux in 1971. He teaches aesthetics at the ESAH. A former writer for Cahiers du cinéma and Les Inrockuptibles, he has co-edited a special issue of Art Press, « Le burlesque, une aventure moderne. »

Valérie CHATELET, MDesS (Harvard Graduate School of Design), is a certified architect. She has worked in France, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Alongside her practice, she researches decision-making processes and the impact of digital technologies on the nature of architectural and urban projects. She has co-edited the sixth issue of Anomalie_digital arts, Interactive Cities (Orléans: HYX, 2007), devoted to the stakes for the transformation of contemporary cities in a context of expansion of digital technologies.

Élie DURING is an assistant professor of philosophy at Université de Paris X-Nanterre. His current research deals with constructions of time-spaces (physics, metaphysics, contemporary creation, urban practices…), on which he is teaching a seminar this year at the Paris École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts. He sits on the editorial board of Critique and is a member of the Ciepfc (Centre International d’Étude de la Philosophie Française Contemporaine, based at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris). His Bergson, Durée et Simultanéité, a critical study of Bergson, will soon be published by Presses Universitaires de France. He also has a forthcoming work on the philosophical stakes of relativity.

Laurent JEANPIERRE is a sociologist and an assistant professor at Université de Strasbourg (Institut d’études politiques). His work is concerned with social configurations, norms of action, and the politics of the artistic and scientific worlds as well as their internationalization. Starting from this research, he derives a critique of critical theories and their effects, turning his attention to what may pertain to experimentation understood as a critique in action, in art and in other disciplines.

Christophe KIHM is a writer for Art Press. He also teaches and is an independent curator.

Dork ZABUNYAN was born in Paris in 1973. He is a philosopher and an assistant professor of film studies at Université de Lille 3. His recent publications include Vers une autre modernité (Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 2008), « Qu’est-ce que la cinéphilosophie? » (Art Press, November 2008), « Pourquoi je suis si bête » [« Why I Am so Dumb »] (Critique, November 2008), and « De Franz Kafka à Jack Bauer » (Trafic, winter 2008). He is also the author of Gilles Deleuze – Voir, parler, penser au risque du cinéma [« Gilles Deleuze – Seeing, Speaking, Thinking Exposed to Cinema »] (Paris: PSN, 2007).