Presentation June

PRESENTATION JUNE

We live in an inertia in which we place ourselves, and are placed, as patient, passive recipients of arts policies designed for us by others, decided upon, carried out and evaluated by others from their assumed position of responsibility as officials or professionals in public administration. We believe it is both necessary and desirable to contribute towards a radical renovation of not only artistic language and practice but also arts policy. This can be done through critical thought and setting in motion a process that basically allows us to envisage another way.

It is with this aim that REU08* proposes to look into and ask questions about cross-disciplinary practices, collective associations, shared authority, intellectual interdependence, the pooling of knowledge, infrastructures and experiments in the service of the common good. Practices that attempt to generate new formulations, define alternative scenarios and advance knowledge of today’s world, while also breaking with it to some extent, suggesting new ways of representing it and possible action to transform what is already there. The idea is to help form archipelagos from the islands of collective production and creativity that are trying to escape state and commercial regulation.

We do not, therefore, see REU08 as a means of publicising individual work, but as coming from a mutual need to try out alternative ways of pooling and activating collective experience. Our aim is not only to make it possible for different groups, agents and authors working in the south to meet, but also to set up, collectively, a permanent and useful platform that will allow these contemporary practices to be seen, to interrelate and interact in a way that may lead to shared spaces and frameworks for work.

Dialogue is essential, as is a willingness to relate, communicate and unravel the mysteries of the economy of power and cultural government. So we hope to set up encounters that not only deliberate but make proposals, producing long-term projects to maintain and strengthen the commitment of all those taking part (as well as those who may join later).

The first results of this process of collective consideration that we want to display and share (The publication Reuceroocho. Un trabajo en proceso entre prácticas artísticas-políticas-poéticas hacia la experiencia de lo común  [Reu08, a work in progress on artistic-political-poetical practices towards common experience]; the website www.r08.es and the joint research project and questionnaire ¿Quién está detrás de la cultura? [Who is behind the arts?]) have already been shown in Malaga and Seville; now we present the REU08 programmes in Granada and Cordoba, in the form of:

A second public call for submissions, this time in a specific context: Granada, with the aim of opening a forum to consider the issues surrounding arts policies in this city.

Discussion groups, debating the questions raised by the joint research project and questionnaire, putting them to various invited participants so as to analyse the particular cultural policies of each city, and intensifying the processes of cooperation, of getting to know each other, of networking.

Workshops, round table discussions and debates, looking at cultural practices from a feminist point of view, collaboration between arts coops working as associates, an analysis of the Andalucian model of entrepreneurship in the arts, particularly in the city of Cordoba, and thoughts on the “cultural capital” brand from various local social angles.

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* The members of REU08 are BNV Producciones, c a l c, La Casa Invisible, Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba, FAAQ, Intervenciones en Jueves, Oopart, Berta Orellana, pOLLO, Manuel Prados Sánchez, s-puma y ZEMOS98.  [^]

Presentation April

PRESENTATION APRIL

Aesthetic production has become integrated, nowadays, into the production of merchandise in general. In analysing the artistic practices that have emerged in Spain at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, as well as the arts policies of institutions, we should bear in mind the changes in the relationship between the economy and culture and the new role assigned to the so-called creative industries.

The effects of these changes can be seen in Andalucía, in a series of initiatives which, though presented as support and encouragement for the most “innovative” art, disguise the application of marketing and fetishism formulas to the world of cultural production: stimulation of business models and private investment, promotion of the figure of the cultural entrepreneur, externalisation of functions of the public, collection of property revenue from “creative districts”, etc. The celebration of biennales, the setting up of new arts centres, venues and programmes, the organisation of conferences and meetings dealing with the creative industries and some administrative restructuring, all come under this same heading.

REU08*, was set up in 2008 in the hope of moving beyond this framework and imagining a transformation of the current situation. The aims of this platform are: to encourage the formation of collective projects working in common; to lessen the current polarisation, in many fields, between political and aesthetic practice; to carry out a joint investigation into the conditions (as regards both ideas and earnings) in which artists live and the institutional policies that affect them. To create, in short, a forum that may help in revising concepts, finding points of agreement, balancing outlets for expression, establishing a reference, setting practices in motion that generate images, allegories and texts underlining the potential of culture for teaching and learning.

The publication Reuceroocho. Un trabajo en proceso entre prácticas artísticas-políticas-poéticas hacia la experiencia de lo común [Reuceroocho, a work in progress on artistic-political-poetical practices towards common experience], the website www.r08.es and the research project and questionnaire ¿Quién está detrás de la cultura? [Who is behind the arts?] are the visible results of this process of collective reflection and experiment.

We are aware that this project does not yet cover in all its complexity the scenario we want to research, describe, make visible and breath life into. Our aim during 2010 is therefore to circulate the tools and working methods produced by REU08; expose them and feel the effects of this exposure; to take a closer look at everything we do not know or know little of, that has escaped us, that goes beyond or perturbs our way of seeing and thinking about ourselves, so that other possible ways of “recognising” or “apprehending”, as Judith Butler would say, may emerge, to encourage other dynamics, “land in or reach some other place”.

During 2010 REU08 will present, confront and display itself in four Andalucian cities, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga and Seville, with a three-pronged programme:

A public call for submissions, inviting people to offer other research, documents and aesthetic pieces that question cultural policy, the conditions under which creative work is carried out, the relationship and conflict between representation, aesthetic and political practice.

Displays and discussion of the research and questionnaire with a series of speakers and on the web, with the aim of not only answering our questions but also intensifying the processes of cooperation, of getting to know each other, of networking.

Public presentations of the project, both within the framework of other cultural initiatives in Andalucía and in a series of sessions and workshops organised by REU08 from April to June 2010.

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* The members of REU08 are: BNV Producciones, c a l c, La Casa Invisible, Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba, FAAQ, Intervenciones en Jueves, Oopart, Berta Orellana, pOLLO, Manuel Prados Sánchez, s-puma and ZEMOS98.  [^]

R08 Córdoba

CORDOBA PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME*
22nd, 23rd and 24th June 2010
Espacio Social y Cultural AL BORDE (c/ Conde de Cárdenas, 3, Córdoba)

* The sessions of collaborative work are held in private. Other activities are open to the general public. 

Tuesday_22nd June 2010

· 10:30 - 11:00 h.
REU08. Joint research into cultural production in Andalucia
Presentation of the project by Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba (coordinators of REU08 Cordoba) and FAAQ (coordinators of REU08 Granada).

· 11:00 - 14:00 h.
Session of collaborative work
With the participation of ACA, Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba, local artists and agents.

Based on the questionnaire designed to gather concrete facts about the situation in which local creative people find themselves, the idea is to share these, evaluate problems and draw conclusions, so as to work towards conditions that would allow for the development of a more encouraging panorama and consequently a strong local network for those who operate in the everyday reality of the arts in this city.

· 18:30 - 20:30 h.
Entrepreneurship in the Arts in Andalucia
Talk-debate with the participation of YProductions.

There is currently an important debate taking place in Andalucia, affecting the field of arts policy. The introduction of institutions and programmes promoting a view of the arts as an economic driver is causing a significant shift: the arts are no longer seen as a right so much as a resource. At the same time plans are being introduced to promote a new figure: the cultural entrepreneur. This economic agent is destined gradually to commercialise the arts. Bodies promoting entrepreneurship push collectives, associations and independent agents working in the arts to change their model of production and adopt more business-like methods. During this session we shall draw up a brief genealogy of this process, identifying the main institutions and programmes promoting entrepreneurship, and discuss the possible consequences of this economic and cultural paradigm shift.

Wednesday_23rd June 2010

· 11:00 - 14:00 h.
Cooperatives in the arts
Round table talk with the participation of Arrempuja Producciones, IDEAS, Cía Jiribilla and Producciones Necesarias.

Latent within the arts industry, which backs policies favouring “big” ventures over local networks, cooperatives allow creative people to set up small structures of self-employment, optimising their limited resources. They help them, in the face of a commercial model of the arts and constantly precarious circumstances, to organise their work collectively and purposefully, prioritising concerns and necessities rather than the maximum business profit. In this discussion we shall seek alternative ways of working and associating to help us out of an inertia that makes us passive recipients of an exclusive arts policy.

· 18:30 - 20:30 h.
Cultural practices from a feminist point of view
Session 1: Femart and Feministaldia. Two platforms for feminist art and thought
Talk-debate with the participation of Ca la Dona and Plazandreok.

Our challenge is to carry on breathing life into this forum for participation, for the exchange of experience and knowledge, for creation and reflection, for relationships, to help this network of women artists grow, with their feminist mission, and strengthen it. We would like to join with other groups of women artists, critics and art historians so as to have some influence on the hegemony of discussion in the art world. This world includes both cultural institutions and the circuits of youth art, art schools and academies. We would like to bring new themes to light and improve the chances of art playing a part in social and every day life. 

Thursday_24th June 2010

· 18:30 - 20:30 h.
Cultural practices from a feminist point of view
Session 2: Art as feminist resistance
Talk-debate with the participation of Mª José Belbel and Azucena Vieites.

Mª José Belbel has a degree in English from the University of Granada and an MA from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. She took part in the anti-Franco struggle in the seventies and has been a feminist activist since the movement began. She has taken part in group exhibitions such as Transgenéric@s and 100%, with visual poems, fanzines, collages, posters and musical recordings of women punk bands and riot grrrls. She works regularly with Erreakzioa-Reacción and LSD.

Azucena Vieites is an artist, with a fine arts degree from EHU/UPV, and has taken part in exhibitions such as Melodrama, Gaur, Hemen, Orain, Dibujos Germinales, Trans Sexual Express and Transgenéric@s. In 1994 she founded the collective Erreakzioa-Reacción with Estibaliz Sadaba and Yolanda de los Bueis. The collective works to create a space for artistic/cultural/activist practice in relation to art and feminism.

The ACA (Asociación de Circo de Andalucía) [Andalucian Circus Association] brings together different sectors of the circus in Andalucia. Its chief aim is to foster, promote and regularise all aspects of this discipline, putting it up where it belongs with the rest of the performing arts.

Arrempuja Producciones is a performers’ cooperative, formed in July 2008 from two circus and story-telling companies, Los Hermanos Moreno and the Medio Real. Arrempuja came about, among other reasons, due to the need to create a company that was more social than commercial in nature. They say that, however hard the political and economic situation, they won’t let themselves be cheated or pushed around.

Ca la Dona is a meeting space for women and women’s groups in Barcelona, open to participation and suggestions. It is a physical space but also, above all, a symbolic one. A place for political experience, reflection and the power of thought. Since 1994 they have organised the FEM Art exhibition to promote women’s art among women, opening up the world of art that has sprung from feminist experience.

Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba is a platform bringing together people who work in the arts and education with the aim of highlighting and winning recognition for local creative talent, against the prevailing policies on the arts. Their activities centre around self-training (for work, creativity and organisation) to empower creative people, strengthen their autonomy and their claims against institutional dynamics, in search of an arts policy based on dialogue and the inclusion of people who work in the arts as protagonists of local culture.

FAAQ is a cross-disciplinary collective carrying out collaborative projects linked to specific contexts. These open up paths of research, creativity and shared learning, with participants putting to work their views and ways of doing things to reflect critically on their environment and collectively inventing creative mechanisms of action to alter it. FAAQ develops strategies to empower these collaborative processes so as to intervene critically in concrete situations. 

Producciones Necesarias is an arts production company born from the need to manage the work and resources of a variety of creative people within their own structure and dynamic, with a policy of encouraging collaborative networks and a common socio-economic ethic. The activities of Producciones Necesarias, which defines itself as a creative project based on shared work, range from audiovisual production, musical composition, the creation of soundscapes and screenplays to arts administration and the production and staging of performances by the Poliposeídas Co.

YProductions is an arts production company from Barcelona that has worked in production, management, research and training in the arts since 2003. They have published many pieces of criticism and analysis of the relationship between economics and the arts within the arts industry, including PRODUCTA 50. Una introducción a algunas de las relaciones que se dan entre la cultura y la economía [PRODUCTA 50. An introduction to some of the relationships between the arts and economics] and their latest book, published by Traficantes de Sueños, Innovación en Cultura [Innovation in Culture]. www.ypsite.net

R08 Granada

GRANADA PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME
7th and 8th June 2010
Centro José Guerrero, c/ Oficios 8, Granada

* The sessions of collaborative work are held in private. Other activitiesare open to the general public.

Monday_7th June 2010

· 10:00 - 11:00 h.
REU08. Joint research into cultural production in Andalucia
Presentation of the project by Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba (coordinators of REU08 Cordoba) and FAAQ (coordinators of REU08 Granada).

· 11:00 - 14:00 h.
Responses
Presentation of proposals received in response to the second call for submissions Who is behind the arts?

· 16:00 - 20:00 h.
Session of collaborative work
The aim of the discussion groups is to place the general issues raised by REU08 in the context of the city of Granada, without straying into abstract analysis or creating an anecdotal local vision. It's a question of thinking collectively, with a heterogeneous group of people connected to the world of arts production and familiar with its peculiarities. The idea of the meeting is to set up a common space, its first goal possibly a collective text on the issues raised.

 
Tuesday_8th June 2010

· 11:00 - 14:00 h.
Responses
Presentation of proposals received in response to the second call for submissions Who is behind the arts?

· 16:00 - 20:00 h.
Session of collaborative work
The aim of the discussion groups is to place the general issues raised by REU08 in the context of the city of Granada, without straying into abstract analysis or creating an anecdotal local vision. It's a question of thinking collectively, with a heterogeneous group of people connected to the world of arts production and familiar with its peculiarities. The idea of the meeting is to set up a common space, its first goal possibly a collective text on the issues raised.

PARTICIPANTS

Emilio Almagro has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Granada. Since 1996 he has been director of the Sandunga art gallery. From 1999 to 2001 he was advisor to the Ayuntamiento de Granada [Granada Town Hall] on plastic arts. He has been spokesman and vicepresident of the Asociación Andaluza de Galerías de Arte Contemporáneo [Andalucian Association of Contemporary Art Galleries], a teacher at the Escuela Superior de Communicación [Higher School of Communications] in Granada and since 2002 he has been executive creative director of the agency Limón Publicidad y Comunicación [Lemon Publicity and Communications].

Jesús Arias is a journalist and musician from Granada. He began his professional career as music critic for the newspapers Diario de Granada and El Día de Granada, later moving to El País to spend fifteen years as their correspondent in Granada. Since 2003 he has written for the arts section of the newspaper Granada Hoy. As a musician, he is a guitarist and composer for the punk rock band TNT.

Gabriel Cabello teaches History of Art at the University of Granada. He has done research for the Spanish Ministry of Education at the University of Oxford and the Institut National d’Historie de l’Art [National Institute of History of Art] in Paris and been a visiting lecturer at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (Morelia, México). He is a member of the Centre de Recherche sur l’Art [Art Research Centre] at the University of Paris X-Nanterre and the editorial board of the magazine Imago Crítica (Anthropos) and is a regular contributor to the blog of the José Guerrero Centre.

José Luis Chacón studied psychology in Granada and psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII. A member of the World Psychoanalysis Association and the Spanish Association of Cinema Historians, he heads the Department of Audiovisual Art of the Diputación de Granada [Granada City Council]. He was director of the Filmoteca de Andalucía [Andalucian Film Library], has written on cinema and psychoanalysis in books such as Val del Omar sin fin [Endless Val del Omar] and Andy Warhol: cine, vídeo y TV [Andy Warhol: cinema, video and TV], and run seminars on film analysis.

Javier Fernández. Doctorate in architecture; teacher of Architectural Projects at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura [Higher Technical College of Architecture] at the University of Granada (2000); director of the CWLab Emerging Laboratory of Architecture (2007); founder and administrator of the collaborative online platform CityWiki (2006); mentor and administrator of the learning space PrimsCity in Second Life, where he develops innovative teaching projects.

Carlos Gil is co-founder of the Granada theatre company Remiendo Teatro, where he specialises in production, administration and distribution. He also coordinates the Remiendo Theatre School and is a member of the governing body of the Asociación de Empresas de Artes Escénicas de Andalucía [Association of Theatrical Arts Enterprises of Andalucia].

Pani Guzmán is a rousing communitarian and committed militant in movements for the transformation of city and social policy in various neighbourhoods of Andalucia. He is intensely involved in lively processes such as the Plataforma Ciudadana Zona Norte [North Zone Citizens’ Platform], the Colectivo Edupar [Edupar Collective], the Red Otra Granada [Other Granada Network], the Editorial Atrapasueños [Dreamcatcher Publishers] and the Presupuestos Participativos [Participative Budgets] in the province of Malaga.

Daniel Lesmes has a degree in History of Art and an MA in Aesthetics from the Complutense University of Madrid. He has taught at Georgetown University in Madrid and been awarded grants by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía [Reina Sofía National Museum and Arts Centre] and the Real Academia de España [Royal Academy of Spain] in Rome. He is currently a member of the research team at the Department of Philosophy IV at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Valeriano López. Ángel Ganivet used to say that, for artists who came from Granada to be called Granadian, they needed more than to have been “born in our city or province”; one had also to see whether they had been “shaped” by Granada, if it had “formed” them, “initiated (them) in the secret of its own spirit”. Does Valeriano López, an artist born in the province and brought up in the city of Granada, meet Ganivet’s requirements? Has the city revealed to him, as to Lorca, “the vein of its lyrical secret”? Does he fit the moral and aesthetic model outlined by Ganivet in lovely Granada? Does he, in short, deserve to be called a Granadian artist?

Iván Monje Álvarez is a musician and composer. He is co-founder, with Mele González, of the Brazilian music group Grupo O Luar, with whom he has worked since 1998. As a composer, he has concentrated on creating soundtracks for theatre shows. In 2007 he founded his own musical theatre company with Marta Sitjà, called Jiribilla. He has been a member of the directorial board of the El Apeadero Collective Association of Artists of Granada since its foundation in 2000 and manager of its theatre space, the Sala El Apeadero.

Enrique Novi has been a passionate record collector since he was very young and has engaged in a variety of musical activities: editor of fanzines, disc jockey, contributor to specialist magazines, manager of performers, concert promoter, and programmer for venues, seasons and festivals. He currently directs Sinestar Poulidor, a musical production and promotion company, while continuing to work as a music critic and writer in Joly group newspapers.

Jesús Rubio Lapaz teaches Contemporary Art and Cinema at the University of Granada and researches contemporary aesthetic culture and its socio-political implications. From this perspective, he heads the research group HUM 736 – Tradition and modernity in contemporary artistic culture. He has curated exhibitions nationally and internationally. At the moment he is particularly interested in studying institutionalisation, the rhetorical values of contemporary cultural production in a world of consumerist neoliberalism and their political and ideological implications.

Asamblea de Mujeres de Granada [the Granada Women’s Assembly] was set up in 1977 as a meeting space, working as an assembly, in which to discuss and share experiences, and with the aim, among others, of spreading feminist ideas among women and society as a whole and putting their demands to the forefront of political and social struggle – aspects expressed in the slogan “the personal is political”. The Asamblea de Mujeres de Granada is part of the state coordinating committee of feminist organisations.

BNV Producciones formed in Granada 1988 as producers and mediators in the arts, with the aim of sparking critical thought and new ways of doing things on the creative front in Andalucia. Current members are Miguel Benlloch, Alicia Pinteño Granado, Manuel Prados Sánchez, Felisa Romero and Joaquín Vázquez.

Brruuumhm! (Qasco). Alfonso Baya, Vanesa Cintas, Alfonso del Río and Susana Vellarino are the members of this group for work, thought, action and fun, who engage in politics through and based on sex. They belong to the University of Granada Research Group HUM 425.

Creador@s Invisibles Córdoba is a platform bringing together people who work in the arts and education with the aim of highlighting and winning recognition for local creative talent, against the prevailing policies on the arts. Their activities centre around self-training (for work, creativity and organisation) to empower creative people, strengthen their autonomy and their claims against institutional dynamics, in search of an arts policy based on dialogue and the inclusion of people who work in the arts as protagonists of local culture. 

FAAQ is a cross-disciplinary collective carrying out collaborative projects linked to specific contexts. These open up paths of research, creativity and shared learning, with participants putting to work their views and ways of doing things to reflect critically on their environment and collectively inventing creative mechanisms of action to alter it. FAAQ develops strategies to empower these collaborative processes so as to intervene critically in concrete situations.

MIGA is an arts association formed in Granada in 2005 by a large group of audiovisual artists, who use it as a platform to encourage and disseminate creative activities locally, regionally, and nationally. Since then it has worked in various fields to facilitate and increase artistic creation, developing three specialist strands to shape each project: training, promotion and circulation.

Oopart is a group of students of the School of Architecture of Granada, interested in questioning their own discipline as well as the ability of architecture to hybridise with other fields. Their short experience arose around the shared concerns that cover technical-technological aspects, systems of participation, of date visualization, etc.

Tomakandela is a feminist collective of young women with precarious lives, run by themselves and outside the law. They work as an assembly, with decisions made by consensus. Over seven years they have worked on various issues (sexual and reproductive rights, maternity, identity, feminist politics). They meet once a week and have organised monthly workshops, prepared by rota. They work with other collectives in Granada with whom they feel an affinity on the questions of structure that concern them, trying to translate the thoughts of the group into direct action and statements in the city.

R08 Sevilla

SEVILLA PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME
Mornings: UNIA (c/ Américo Vespucio 2).
Afternoons: Convento Santa. María de los Reyes (c/ Santiago 33)
Closing ceremony: Sala El Cachorro (c/Procurador 19, Triana)

All events are open to the public

Wednesday_28th April 2010

· 10:00 h.
REU08. Joint research into cultural production in Andalucia
Presentation of the project REU08 and the joint research Who is behind the arts? By Santiago Barber and José Romero (coordinators of REU08 in Seville) and FAAQ (coordinators of REU08 in Granada).

Wednesday_28th, Thursday_29th and Friday_30th April 2010

· 11:00 to 14:00 h.
Responses
Exhibition of entries in response to Who is behind the arts

During the morning sessions we shall attend to the exhibition of entries received in response to REU08’s open invitation, for which the closing date is 12th April 2010. About 15 minutes will be available for each entry. The topics suggested are: the economy of the arts and distribution of and access to its resources; critical analysis of institutional policy on the arts; links and conflicts between aesthetic and political practice; the distribution, regulation and expansion of knowledge today and the perversion and persuasiveness of representation of the self as a brand. The idea of calling for contributions is to make contact and we hope to make room for the different responses that may arise from questions we believe to be fundamental in understanding the cultural context and living and working conditions in which we operate.

Wednesday_28th and Thursday_29th April 2010

· 16:00 to 20:00 h.
Sessions of collaborative work
With local participants.

These sessions will revolve around the questionnaire distributed by REU08, taken as a model to be enriched with other experiences, using it as a pretext to gather common knowledge. During these two sessions we shall invite our guests to take a critical look at the concept of “culture” and also approach it collectively. We hope that the mixture of experiences and focuses of attention of those taking part will provide a broader and more complex view of this process on which we are embarking.

Friday_30th April 2010

· 22:00 h.
Closing ceremony

PARTICIPANTS

Francisco Aix Gracia.Since the nineties he has trodden a line, both applied and academic, between social sciences and artivismo, or artactivism. On the social science side he is concerned with urban collectives, whether formal or less so (from so-called vandals to social movements), the varied forms of cultural creation and artistic production. On the artactivism side he does artistic work intersecting with various social movements.

Jaime Gastalver would like to see himself, above all, as an individual, with his conflicts and passions. He is also a qualified architect who tries to bring a new ethic to the field. The architectural projects he works on are meant to be lived in. He also recites poetry, cooks, writes and makes documentaries with a style all their own. He likes to commit political-poetical acts in the city…and he is now 37 years old.

Alex Hache is a sociologist, with a doctorate in Social Economics and Information and Communication Theory, a media activist with FLOSS and a researcher into the potential of IT for social and political change. She is currently working on the activist research project Donestech, Lorea and N-1.

Daniel Lagares is a documentary maker. His latest film, Asina, won a special mention from the jury at Alcances 2009 and best documentary from the Canaries at Miradasdoc 2009. Carlos Reviriego, editor in chief of Cahiers du cinéma, considered it one of the best pieces of work of 2009.

Salud López tours different spaces to work on cultural creation and discussion, encouraging the best use of existing technical and human resources and arguing for more to be made available. In this context, she co-founded the venue Endanza and she now directs La Pista Digital. She is looking into the barriers that language, as we now see it, imposes on thought.

Fernando Martínez Cabezudo is researching, for his thesis, the process of generation of knowledge in relation to the concept of intellectual property and the ways it is protected. His vision is fourfold: legal, political, economic and anthropological. He currently teaches at UPO, in the Public Law unit of the Philosophy of Law department.

Darío Mateo is a puzzle doer and architect, though he tries to bring other experiences to bear on this profession, that also form part of the jigsaw: poetic, visual, comparative, absurd, sensitive, spatial, those of the essential pleasures, ambiance and well being. Other parts of the puzzle have come from other, very different practices: philosophy and poetry. He has given talks and lectures in various architectural schools and institutions. He won the Europan 7 prize at Luarca, has made two fictional documentaries and was a member of the Asamblea de la Fábrica de Sombreros [Hat Factory Assembly] until it was disbanded. He now keeps a close eye on the Centro Social La Huelga [Strike Social Centre].

Beatriz Mateos has been working for over ten years as a producer and technician in different aspects of audiovisuals. She is currently developing pieces and projects in which the horizontal organisation of work processes is fundamental. She has contributed to the cultural running of various squats in Seville, acting as a bridge between collectives, associations and groups interested in putting on concerts, exhibitions, theatre and screenings.

Antonio Molina Flores is a writer and teaches Aesthetics at the Universidad de Sevilla. He has researched theory and classification of the arts, the relationship between philosophy and poetry, so-called historical avant gardes, and more general aspects of human creativity.

Chaska Mori studied political science in France and theatre in Peru. She writes scripts for documentaries and has worked for Intermedia Producciones. Since taking part in the collective project Tebraa, portraits of Saharan women, a documentary about Saharan women made by women, she has been involved with the Sahara, its people and problems. For two years she directed the Encuentros Internacionales de Arte en los Territorios Liberados del Sahara Occidental [International Art Encounters in the Liberated Territories of the Western Sahara] – Artifariti. She runs projects that use culture to publicise the conflict in the Sahara and in 2009 was a member of the Aminetu Haidar Support Platform who spent a month accompanying and publicising the Saharan activist’s hunger strike in Lanzarote.

Ibán Neira is a geographer and supply teacher at the Universidad de Sevilla. A specialist in urban studies and social geography, he has devoted himself mainly to research into the urban environment, gentrification, social and ethnic segregation, taking a special interest in SIGs and spatial econometrics. He is also an activist in social movements in Seville and has links with squatted social centres in the city.

José Pérez de Lama [osfa] has a doctorate in Architecture and teaches at the Universidad de Sevilla. He is a member of the hackitectura.net collective (also the WWB Sociedad Cooperativa Andaluza), along with Sergio Moreno and Pablo de Soto, dedicated to research, as supporters of free software and culture, into the new directions being taken by urban movements, the flows of information and communication and social networks. They have constructed several prototypes for technological public spaces (Fadaiat, TCS2, Wikiplaza) and worked on various cartographical projects.

David Pérez Leira has a doctorate from the ISEC (Institute of Sociology and Farming Studies) and is a member of GIEA (Research Group on Ecological and Agro-ecological Economics).

Manuel Pombero works in the field of performing arts (theatre, dance and music) in Andalucia, specifically in managing grants made to this professional sector. Through his involvement in social movements, he is also involved in arts and social venues run by and for local people (Casa de la Paz, Palacio Pumarejo). He is interested in projects of self-management and the recovery of historic buildings by and for local people, as well as the shared promotion and broadcasting of cultural content.

Ángel del Río Sánchez is an anthropologist, teaches Symbolic Anthropology at the Universidad de Sevilla and does specialist research into social movements. He is co-author of the book The prisoners’canal, 1940-1962. Forced labour: from political repression to economic exploitation. He directed the project Map of the Ditches of Seville.

Rafael Romero is a sociologist who researches processes of popular participation for UPO and the Ayuntamiento de Sevilla [Local Government of Seville]. He has long experience of critical politics, bringing a vision gleaned from daily life, academia and political activity.

Mar Villaespesa has a degree in Linguistics from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Since 1980 she has worked as an art critic and independent curator. In 1988 she co-founded and directed the arts magazine Arena International. Since 1990 she has commissioned projects and edited the publications accompanying them, including: El sueño imperativo; Plus Ultra; 100%; Alèm da agua; Almadraba; L-una; Ghuraba; Encuentros Regreso al futuro - Festival ZEMOS98. Since 2000 she has been a member of the arteypensamiento team at UNIA, where she has directed the projects Pensar la edición; Transacciones/Fadaiat and Sobre capital y territorio.

Cámara Lenta is a platform that has worked since 2006 to propose,stimulate and develop communal activities in the audiovisual arts and their criticism. Without being too nerdy or neglecting its wealth of symbolism, they continue to believe in cinema as a concept that acts as areference for an experience that is changeable but has not been wiped out by the range of audiovisual media into which it has diversified. Of all these manifestations, the one that interests them most is its socialdynamic, its processes of collective creation and enjoyment. As well aspublishing a magazine on “cinema and other audiovisuals”, their first venture, Cámara Lenta organise the permanent cycle of screenings Cámara Lenta, Cámara Inquieta [Slow Camera, Restless Camera] and the shorts competition ‘Por Caracoles’, among other projects. Cámara Lenta’s members are Juan Antonio Bermúdez, Lola Algarrada, Pepe Calvo and many more.

FAAQ is a group working on collaborative research projects in the fields of art, architecture and education, linked to specific contexts. Its members met and began working together on Aulabierta (Open classroom), a project that has worked since 2004 on methods of self-education and co-apprenticeship at the Universidad de Granada.

La Palabra Itinerante is a collective for social, cultural and artistic action, based in Andalucia. Their field of action is creativity (novels, stories, poetry, performance, songs, cds, comics, video-poetry…), reflection on aesthetics and politics, publishing, running workshops, organising activities and meetings...

Public Presentations of the project REU08 in Seville:

- Intervenciones en Jueves. 18th March 2010. C/ Feria.

- Festival ZEMOS’98. 19th March 2010. Centro de las Artes de Sevilla (caS), c/ Torneo nº 18.

- Feria del Libro. 9th May 2010. La Fuga bookshop stand. Plaza Nueva.

R08 Málaga

MALAGA PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME

All activities are open to the public

Friday_9th April 2010

· 19:00 h.
REU08. Joint research into cultural production in Andalucia
Presentation of the project REU08 and the joint research Who is behind the arts? by Santiago Barber and Jose Romero (coordinators of REU08 in Seville), BNV Producciones and La Casa Invisible (coordinators of REU08 in Malaga).

· 20:00 h.
MALAGA 2016 a debate. Reflections on metropolitan branding and local cultural policy
Round table discussion with Tecla Lumbreras and Alfredo Rubio.

Malaga City Council has entered the race for European Capital of Culture 2016, hoping, through this candidacy, to show off the cultural virtues of the city. Behind this grand gesture, however, lies the reality of a lack of cultural facilities, policies of outsourcing various functions, public funds diverted to the private sector and increasingly precarious living and working conditions for creative people. In the midst of the campaign for the title of Capital, we invite thoughts on municipal arts policy and the alternatives offered by cultural initiatives and those active in the arts in the city.

Saturday_10th April 2010

· 12:00 to 15:00 h.
Emerging innovation and diffuse creativity. Introductory thoughts on the political economy of the arts
Workshop with Emmanuel Rodríguez, Traficantes de Sueños and YProductions. 

In recent years creativity and innovation have become a mantra repeated endlessly by businesses, public institutions and the media. In the current economic crisis, the so-called Creative and Cultural Industries are called on to turn themselves into a driving force of the economy, with ever greater budgets. Behind the abstract formulas and rhetorical declarations, we see a constant search for profitability in the arts, within a framework of neo-liberal thinking that has significant consequences for our towns. The aim of this workshop is to look into what we consider to be key concepts in understanding this process and formulate proposals focussing on recognition of the worth of the diffuse creative work being carried out in our cities.

· 17:00 to 21:00 h.
Session of collaborative work
With Creadores Invisibles Málaga and local participants.

These sessions will revolve around the questionnaire distributed by REU08 taken as a model to be enriched with other experiences, using it as a pretext to gather common knowledge. During the session we shall invite our guests to take a critical look at the concept of “culture” and also approach it collectively. We hope that the mixture of experiences and focuses of attention of those taking part will provide a broader and more complex view of this process on which we are embarking.

PARTICIPANTS

Santiago Barber works on the practice of art and its links with politics, as a way of “being” in reality. Through his art and statements he shares his experiences with various social and cultural movements in the context of urban regeneration, grass roots organisation and the creation of critical culture.

Tecla Lumbreras is an arts manager, art curator and teacher of Communications at UMA. She has been director of the art gallery at Malaga Architectural College, secretary of the Arts Board of the Strategic Plan for Malaga and, from 1999 to 2003, director of the Arts Department of the Diputación Provincial de Málaga [Malaga provincial government]. She currently works for various media organisations and runs a venue called the Galería Central with a group of pupils.

Emmanuel Rodríguez graduated in Sociology from UNED and has a history doctorate from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Author of the book Impossible government; work and frontiers in the metropolises of plenty, published by Traficantes de Sueños, a project of which he is a member, that is one of the most solid and interesting independent political enterprises operating in Spain today. He is also a cofounder of the Universidad Nómada [Nomad University].

Jose Romero's biography is interwoven with the evolution of the different practices, representations and concepts of feminism and of political criticism in general, whose chief attraction is their divergence from the vertical structure of Power. She experiments with iconoclastic expression and the diffusion of communication, walking a tightrope between the gaps created by the grammatical scaffolding of cultural intersection and the technologies of the self. 

Alfredo Rubio teaches geography at UMA and is a member of the Rizoma Foundation. He has written many articles on the economic, urban and cultural development of the city of Malaga and the space which Rizoma has defined as ZoMeCS (Metropolitan Zone of the Costa del Sol).

BNV Producciones formed in 1988 as producers and mediators in the arts, with the aim of sparking critical thought and new ways of doing things on the creative front in Andalucia. Current members are Miguel Benlloch, Alicia Pinteño Granado, Manuel Prados Sánchez, Felisa Romero and Joaquín Vázquez.

La Casa Invisible is a communal arts centre located in the centre of Malaga and run by a large network of local people and artists, with the aim of encouraging freedom in the arts and enabling people to organise things for themselves. http://lainvisible.net

Creadores Invisibles Málaga is a platform and network connecting creatives and arts workers in Malaga, who operate on the basis of free, collaborative expression and turn a critical eye on contemporary arts policy.

Traficantes de Sueños was set up with the aim of providing a meeting place and debating platform for the different points of view found in social movements. In an attempt to go further, it hopes to enrich the discussions, sensibilities and practice of those trying to transform the present state of affairs. To this end it has set up an associate bookshop, a publishing house and a venue that works with alternative distribution networks. Texts are published under the licences Creative Commons and copyleft. www.traficantes.net

YProductions. is an arts organisation based in Barcelona, which has been doing production, management, research and teaching work in the arts since 2003. They have published numerous works of criticism and analysis of the relationship between the economy and culture in the so-called creative industries, including PRODUCTA 50. An introduction to some of the relationships between culture and the economy and their latest book, published by Traficantes de Sueños, Innovation in Culture. www.ypsite.net