Escape to Los Angeles


Next weekend, I'll be down in LA to lock horns at a SoCal iteration of the Continental Drift seminar taking place at the Public School. Won't be able to stick around the city for too long, but if you're there, come to this... Besides, I've got a sneaking suspicion that there will be equal parts theory and carousing. Website here, info below.

Continental Drift: Control Society/ Metamorphosis

On the weekend before the March 4th state-wide UC strike, we invite you to participatein a two-day theory convergence, a “Continental Drift” seminar with the Paris-based theorist, Brian Holmes. Past Drifts has taken a variety of forms in its manifestations at 16 Beaver (2004-2006) in New York, or through the Midwest’s radical culture corridor (2008); and here in Los Angeles it will confront a California whose infrastructure is crumbling, whose government is disfunctional, and whose public education is in crisis from the space of an autonomous education alternative.

Although this Continental Drift is situated here, in a time of occupations and walkouts, it will connect the changes occurring at our universities to the emergence of a neoliberal control society over the past few decades.

The structure of the weekend will be two-days in four parts. Most parts will be structured as participatory conversations, guided by an interlocutor; togetherwe will explore these themes.

On the first day, we try to understand the massive economic and psychological shifts that have occurred since the end of the 1960’s.

And on the second day, we will locate possible territories for resistance, autonomy, or invention. Continuing in the spirit of our collective conversations so far, we are leaving the lecture-Q&A format aside for themed discussions.

Location:

The Public School
951 Chung King Rd., Chinatown,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
February 27
12:00 Disassociation (Liz Glynn and Marc Herbst)
2.00 Financialization (Aaron Benanav and Zen Dochterman)
4.00 Occupationation/Collective Speech (Cara Baldwin, Nathan Brown, Maya Gonzalez, Evan Calder Williams)
7.00 Day 1 Discussion- Brian Holmes Facilitator
February 28
12:00 Autonomous Spaces (Hector Gallegos, Robby Herbst)
2.00 Precarity (Sean Dockray and Christina Ulke)
4.00 Brian Holmes Lecture
7.00 Sharable Territories/Bifurcation (Ava Bromberg and Jason Smith)

Organized by Zen Doctherman, Cara Baldwin, Jason Smith, Sean Dockray, Liz Glynn, Solomon Bothwell, Christina Ulke, Marc Herbst, Robby Herbst

The Continental Drift is a nomadic seminar organized collaboratively between Brian Holmes and DIY spaces. The first Drift occured at 16 Beaver in NY (2005) and has been held there and elsewhere since. The Drift is a conversation around particular elements of neoliberalism.

The Public School Los Angeles is a school with no curriculum. It is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.

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