Vrijdag 7 oktober 2022 Opening (English speaking)
15:00-15:05 h
Welcoming by Boudewijn Richel Talk: Kunst in tijden van digitale reproductie 15:05–15:45 h Rob Scholte (In-person appearance)
Q&A 15:45–16:00 h Rob Scholte Talk: Freedom, a country at the end of history (English speaking)
16:00–16:40 h Lea Ypi (In-person appearance)
Professor in Political Theory in London School of Economics, expertise in Marxism & Critical Theory.
Q&A 16:40 – 17:00 h Lea Ypi Talk: Het peloton en ik. Het leven als etappe of klassement (English speaking)
17.15 - 18.00 h Guillaume Martin (In-person appearance)
Q&A 18:00 - 18.15 h Guillaume Martin Feico Deutekom speelt Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hania Rani 18:15 – 18:45 h Feico Deutekom Break: Meeting at the winebar 18.35 - 19.00 h
Talk: The cultural identity of Europe (English speaking)
19.00 - 19.45 h Simon Strauß (In-person appearance)
Q&A 19.45 - 20.00 h Simon Strauß Break 20:00 – 20:30 h
Talk 20:30 – 22:30 h Slavoj Žižek (In-person appearance)
Q&A 21:40 – 23:00 h Slavoj Žižek Meeting at the winebar 23:00 – 23:30 h
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek hardly needs an introduction.
He is regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of our time, although he would certainly not say so himself. There are many different ways to describe him, and he is being called both a ‘Marxist’ and a ‘rockstar philosopher’ – often in the same sentence.
What makes Žižek so interesting is that he knows how to trace the values of the present time such as 'woke' and 'populism' back to their roots to show the values they conceal. Reality is not very real for Žižek, it is just a construction consisting of symbols, which can only be regarded as relatively real.
When Žižek talks about the many political crisis of our time he does not just repeat what others have already pointed out but instead he gives an original interpretation of the world that becomes visible when you look past the clichés.
These thoughts and insights put him in the forefront of many of our time’s debates – whether it is about identity, sex, popular culture, power or war. His most recent book is “Hegel in A Wired Brain” and to understand Žižeks vision is to understand a piece of a possible future – whether or not that future is one we would want to be a part of.
The video below is a recent conversation between Žižek and Harari on the topic of the increasingly unclear difference between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’.
Simon Strauß
The identity of Europe.
In 2017 the German author Simon Strauß released his debut novel Sieben Nächte to much critical acclaim. The German newspaper Tagesspiegel has even hailed him as one the greatest talents of his generation and he has since released another successful novel that, like his first one, takes the temperature of our time.
His theme is Europe and the cultural identity of Europe, and he takes a critical look our modern-day digitalised consumer society and its lack of meaningful communities. The events of this spring of course put Europe in a different light. But talking about Europe should, however, not just be about adopting the slogans of the larger countries and dismiss the smaller countries of Europe as insignificant.
Simon Strauß speaks in English at the G10.
Lea Ypi
Lea Ypi is an Albanian author and academic and currently a professor of political theory at London School of Economics.
Ypi grew up in one of the last Stalinist outposts of Europe: Albania. An isolated country where communist ideals had officially replaced religion and a place that was almost impossible to either visit or leave. But to Lea Ypi it was still home and her upbringing under communism until its fall in 1991 turned her into a relentless questioner of what it means to be really free. In October 2021 she published the book “Free” – a memoir of the end of Communism in the Balkans – where she traces the limits of progress, the burden of the past as well and the space between ideals and reality.
“Free” was chosen as a book of the year by The Guardian, Financial Times and numerous other newspapers.
Rob Scholte
To the Dutch artist Rob Scholte the ideas of originality and authenticity are no more than illusions. In his work ‘the king of the copyright’ as Ralph Keuning, director of the Museum De Fundatie, once called him, questions general ideas of uniqueness, ownership, reproduction and appropriation. Scholte studied at the Academie Minerva in Groningen, the Vrije Academie in Den Haag and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. His works have been part of the Venice Biennale, Documenta 8 and the Biennale of São Paolo. In 2013 Scholte founded his own museum, The Rob Scholte Museum in Den Helder, where parts of his collection are being exhibited.
Feico Deutekom
Feico Deutekom is a Dutch pianist, singer and arranger. He is specialized in the work of contempory composers such as Philip Glass, Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Lang. Early on in his life introduced to music his father, a jazz musician, Feico studied the works of classical composers before turning more towards minimal music and neo-classical music.
Co-founder of the Attacca Ensemble, Feico has toured together with harpist Lavinia Meijer all major stages in The Netherlands.