Oleg Aronson and Helen Petrovsky

Saturday, 30 May 2015, 19:00

“Democracy of the Dead” and “Democracy of the Alive”

Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Visual Culture Research Center and Political Critique invite you to the lectures by Oleg Aronson and Helen Petrovsky, which will take place on Saturday, May 30, at 19:00.

Democracy is usually understood as a form of political rule. However, even in such terms it is quite unstable, contradictory and looks rather like a social utopia than effective political mechanism. Moreover, democratic rhetoric, which refers to the values of liberty, equality, and justice, became a part of contemporary politics, a way of its self-representation. Meanwhile, we can conceive democracy in a different way – by pointing to some of its manifestations, which are resistant to politics and even incompatible with it. Oleg Aronson and Helen Pertovsky will address these issues in their short lectures – “Democracy of the Dead” (about the relation of democracy to war and formation of mass society) and “Democracy of the Alive” (about the logic of multitude, in which action confronts political imagination).

Oleg Aronson is an art historian, film and media theorist, philosopher. He is a fellow researcher at the Institute of Philosophy (Russian Academy of Sciences).

Helen Petrovsky is a philosopher, anthropologist, cultural theorist. She is editor-in-chief of “Siniy Divan” magazine.

Lectures will take place at Visual Culture Research Center within the frameworks of the exhibition “Some Say You Can Find Happiness There” and “Exploitation of the Imaginary” project (May 20 – June 15, 2015).

Admission is free

The project is supported by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

Supported by ERSTE Stiftung and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Media partners:

Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC) was founded in 2008 as a platform for collaboration between academic, artistic, and activist communities. VCRC is an independent initiative, which is engaged in publishing and artistic activities, scientific research, organization of public lectures, discussions, and conferences. In 2015 Visual Culture Research Center received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award.

Visual Culture Research Center (44 Hlybochytska Street (1st floor), Kyiv)

Contacts:

+38096 4929600 (Nataliya Neshevets)
www.facebook.com/vcrc.org.ua
vcrc@vcrc.org.ua