FORMAT is a ‘live magazine’ looking at the shapes that discourse takes. This summer from 4 to 17 July at the AA, Issue 2 will talk about talking, show what it means to show something, and present the hidden politics of presentation. Mixing anecdote and analysis, seminars with screenings and singing, FORMAT’s themed, reflexive sessions look back on how knowledge has been formatted into disciplines, institutions, technologies — as well as how the present moment questions or surpasses received formats of cultural consumption. Paraphrasing Marshall McLuhan, ‘The format is the massage.’
Organised by Shumon Basar
SAM JACOB is an architect and writer who teaches at the AA and UIC, Chicago. www.strangeharvest.com
SHUMON BASAR is a writer, editor, curator and Director of the Cultural Programme at the AA. http://yourheadisthewholeworld.wordpress.com/
Issue 2
Summer 2012
features a format that turns analyst’s couch into sofa; a format that resists the powers that be; a format that preys on your secret weaknesses and non-existent desires; a format that repeats what you know differently and format that says what you didn’t know you wanted to know.
4 July
chat show format
presents psychological furniture, psychoanalytical entertainment and psycho breakdowns
with sam jacob and shumon basar
Guest video appearances from parkinson, oprah, donohue, wogan
and charlie rose
6 July
protest format
with michael brooke and harry giles
11 July
spam format
with contributions from cressida kocienski, wayne daly and hito steyerl
13 July
cover version format
with tamara barnett-herrin, sophie c. bernhard and mark fisher
17 July
commentary format
with victoria camblin, cécile b. evans and guests