A project by Suzanne Treister at Raven Row over four weekends featuring four keynote speeches within a specially designed theatre: A global futurist, a U.S. Security Agency insider, an anarcho-primitivist and the international expert on world's fairs... Alongside an exhibition including three unique libraries, two video lounges and designs for a virtual world's fair.
Weekend 28/29 July, 4/5, 11/12, 18/19 August 2012
Saturdays:
3pm: Exhibition open
5–7pm: Lecture/Performance (see below)
7–9pm: Exhibition open
Sundays:
11–6pm: Exhibition open, with screenings of previous lecture/performances
Lectures/Performances
Since London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 world’s fairs have provided a space for nations to represent themselves. They are potent signs of the fantasies, politics and technologies of their times and aspirations for the future. The Real Truth. A World’s Fair exposes aspects of the present and proposes ways into the future.
A contextual introduction will be provided by Robert W. Rydell’s in-depth analysis of the politics and histories of world’s fairs, to be followed by lecture/performances from three visionary speakers: John Zerzan, Jim Channon and Richard Thieme, who actively devote their lives to ideas, visions and projects for the future of the planet.
During the weekends Raven Row's upstairs galleries will house three libraries: A Military/Intelligence Recruitment Library, Fifth Estate Anarchist Magazine 1965–2012 and Jon Bewley’s ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Library. Historical artefacts from world’s fairs, designs for a virtual world’s fair, and memorabilia provided by each speaker will also be displayed. Screenings in the video lounges included Strange Culture by Lynn Hershman Leeson (2007) and Das Netz by Lutz Dammbeck (2003).
The Real Truth. A World’s Fair will provide audiences with extraordinary food for thought and action.
Suzanne Treister is a London-based artist. Her most recent project, ‘HEXEN 2.0’, was shown this year at the Science Museum, London, travelling to Hartware MedienKunstverein, Dortmund; D21, Leipzig; Secession, Vienna and P.P.O.W, New York.