Transmission. Annual
Transmission: Annual
At the end of André Breton’s semi-autobiographical book Nadja, he notes an extract from a morning newspaper: a wireless operator in charge of the telegraph post on the Ile de Sable had picked up a fragment of a message. It said: ‘Something isn't right’, but did not give the position of the aeroplane at that moment and, due to the very bad atmospheric conditions and the interference produced by them, the operator was unable to make any other phrase or to enter into communication. The message was transmitted on a wavelength of 625 metres, and given the strength of reception, the wireless operator was able to localise the aeroplane within a radius of 80 kilometres around the island. Then Breton adds his last line: Beauty must be convulsive or not at all. It was a real press article, from the 27th December 1927, and possessed, for Breton the value of an oracle, revealing what he called ‘le hasard objetif’ (objective chance). ‘Something isn’t right’, but nonetheless a message is carried, a message of transmission itself, as though what is sent and received lies in the acts of sending and reception.
Transmission is the act of passing something on, via a channel. One might make a list of a multiplicity of ways of transmission, including wisdom, enlightenment, education, messages sent over a distance through electrical or electronic means, and disease (which has both locus and route). In transmission, there is a move from one to another, and each may be changed in the move, in the encounter. To date, our transmission (or Transmission) has encompassed a yearly lecture programme, an annual symposium, a print portfolio, five volumes of discussions between speakers (artists and academics) and their audiences (Transmission: Speaking and Listening), an on-going series of books (The Rules of Engagement), and a series of chapbooks (Transmission: Host), produced as an exchange between a host and his/her guest. There is research, there are documents, and these are played out wherever co-respondents announce themselves. There is oral transmission and there are written records; the former may be assumed to be less trustworthy than the latter and also, somehow, more true (that it is constructed, subjected to careful editing or victim of lost recordings, is often forgotten). Transmission: Annual, a journal that is our new locus and route, extends the work undertaken in the lecture programme, which follows a theme, though as a theme it has no rules (does not pathologies its object), other than those of hospitality (to honour the guest, we might say, though the guest has his/her own duties and obligations). The journal also escapes the lecture series, drawing on broader horizons, wider paths, diverse fields. What it is not is a fetishisation of the social encounter or the reduction of conversation to an aesthetic genre.
Editors: Michael Corris, Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Sharon Kivland
Editorial assistant: Jamie Crewe
Advisory Board: Maureen Connor, CUNY, New York, USA; Jean-Marc Huitorel, Rennes, France; Charlie Gere, Lancaster University, UK;Alfredo Jaar, NewYork, USA; Ahuvia Kahane, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; Elizabeth Legge, University of Toronto, Canada;Yve Lomax, Royal College ofArt/Goldsmiths, London, UK:Victor Mazin, East-European Institute of Psychoanalysis, St Petersburg, Russia; Cesare Pietroiusti, Rome, Italy; Matthew Poole, University of Essex, UK; Blake Stimson, University of California, Davis, USA; Kristine Stiles, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; John Timberlake, Middlesex University, London, UK
Transmision Annual is published by Artwords Press, London
Transmission Annual: Provocation was published in December 2011, and includes contributions from Sean Ashton, Roisin Byrne, Matthew Brower, Jeffery Charles/Henry Peacock, David Cotterrell/Laray Polk, Annabe; Daou and David Markus, James Elkins, James Hellings, Jean-Marc Huitorel. Ahuvia Kahane, Vladimir Kustov, Elizabeth Legge, Caroline May, Victor Mazin, Avi Mograbi, Michael Newman, Malcolm Quinn, Giorgio Sadotti, Noah Simblist, Francis Summers, Christine Takengny, Charissa Terranova, Barthelemy Toguo,and Dot Tuer.
Transmission Annual: Hospitality was published in July 2010, and includes contributions from Graham Allen, Kristen Alvanson, Amanda Beech, Jerome Carroll, Clegg & Guttmann, Kris Coehn, Clare Connors, Nigel Cooke, Michael Corris, Eileen Costa, Juan Cruz, Merixtell Duran, Tim Etchells, Marcia Farquhar, Rachel Garfield, Charlie Gere, Judith Goddard, Laura Heit, Vit Hopley, Nancy Hwang, Alfredo Jaar, Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Ahuvia Kahane, Sharon Kivland, Esther Leslie, Yve Lomax, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Robin Mackay, Marko M?etamm, Victor Mazin, Penny McCarthy, E. Elias Merhige, Forbes Morlock. Reza Negarestani, Hayley Newman, Dany Nobis, Haralampi G. Oroschakoff, John W. P. Phillips, Cesare Pietroiusti, Jeanne Randolph, Antonio Santos, Javier Santos, Naomi Segal, Roy Sellars, Blake Stimson, Thomosn & Craighead, Irene De Vico Fallani, Rodrigo Villas, Nina Wakeford, and Sarah Wood.
Transmission Annual invites proposals for contributions to the next issue of the journal, to be published in December 2011, followed by a symposium convened by the Meadow School of the Arts, SMUniversity, Dallas, Texas, in early 2012.
The pilot issue, published by Artwords, London, took up the theme of hospitality (including the stranger and the friend).
Art as provocation is a concept that has inspired deliberation, controversy, altered perceptions, and possibly inspired some to take flight from typical modes of praxis. However, what actually constitutes a ‘provocative’ work of art remains in question as a truly provocative act is always contingent on a particular context. Consider, for example, the historical trajectory of the Duchampian ‘readymade’ and the rhetorical force of its contemporary manifestations. We wish to explore how art can provoke, activate, and antagonise the viewer without employing or referring to well-known aesthetic and political strategies that seek to produce shocking and immediate affects. Most importantly, we wish to consider how the concept of provocation is at its most trenchant when it is conceived as fluid and unfixed, and discussed and disputed outside the borders of the hoary discourse of the historical avant-garde. We are interested in a provocation in art that is determined by a broad range of contingent factors, external to the physical properties of art.
How to submit
Abstracts for essays (3000 to 4000 words, though we will be pleased to consider shorter texts) and/or proposals for artist’s project pages (up to ten pages) should be sent to sharonkivland@wanadoo.fr by 14th January 2011. All submissions are peer-reviewed. The deadline for submission of final essays and projects is 11th April 2011.
Download the MHRA Style Guide and accompanying Style notes.
At the end of André Breton’s semi-autobiographical book Nadja, he notes an extract from a morning newspaper: a wireless operator in charge of the telegraph post on the Ile de Sable had picked up a fragment of a message. It said: ‘Something isn't right’, but did not give the position of the aeroplane at that moment and, due to the very bad atmospheric conditions and the interference produced by them, the operator was unable to make any other phrase or to enter into communication. The message was transmitted on a wavelength of 625 metres, and given the strength of reception, the wireless operator was able to localise the aeroplane within a radius of 80 kilometres around the island. Then Breton adds his last line: Beauty must be convulsive or not at all. It was a real press article, from the 27th December 1927, and possessed, for Breton the value of an oracle, revealing what he called ‘le hasard objetif’ (objective chance). ‘Something isn’t right’, but nonetheless a message is carried, a message of transmission itself, as though what is sent and received lies in the acts of sending and reception.
Transmission is the act of passing something on, via a channel. One might make a list of a multiplicity of ways of transmission, including wisdom, enlightenment, education, messages sent over a distance through electrical or electronic means, and disease (which has both locus and route). In transmission, there is a move from one to another, and each may be changed in the move, in the encounter. To date, our transmission (or Transmission) has encompassed a yearly lecture programme, an annual symposium, a print portfolio, five volumes of discussions between speakers (artists and academics) and their audiences (Transmission: Speaking and Listening), an on-going series of books (The Rules of Engagement), and a series of chapbooks (Transmission: Host), produced as an exchange between a host and his/her guest. There is research, there are documents, and these are played out wherever co-respondents announce themselves. There is oral transmission and there are written records; the former may be assumed to be less trustworthy than the latter and also, somehow, more true (that it is constructed, subjected to careful editing or victim of lost recordings, is often forgotten). Transmission: Annual, a journal that is our new locus and route, extends the work undertaken in the lecture programme, which follows a theme, though as a theme it has no rules (does not pathologies its object), other than those of hospitality (to honour the guest, we might say, though the guest has his/her own duties and obligations). The journal also escapes the lecture series, drawing on broader horizons, wider paths, diverse fields. What it is not is a fetishisation of the social encounter or the reduction of conversation to an aesthetic genre.
The pilot issue, which will be published in July 2010, takes up the three-year discussions on hospitality, incorporating the stranger and the friend, folding them into our hospitable fold, introducing writers, thinkers, artists to each other (and to a supposed reader), and mixing the drinks generously, even when ‘something is not right’, especially because ‘something is not right’. Transmission too easily goes off air; it is not registered and without register, disappears (this is always the threat). Speculation elides what is (and which we should not seek to avoid), while confirming what is already known is equally risky (even odious). We are here, headphones on, eager, inviting reception, asking for a reply. Roger, over, copy and out; ça va, ça va pas. Say again.
Contributors include Graham Allen, Krisetn Alvanson, Amanda Beech, Jerome Carroll, Clegg & Guttmann, Kris Cohen, Claire Connors, Nigel Cooke, Eileen Costa, Juan Cruz, Meritxell Duran. Tim Etchells, Marcia Farquhar, Rachel Garfield, Charlie Gere, Judith Goddard, Laura Heit, Vit Hopley, Nancy Hwang, Alfredo Jaar, Ahuvia Kahane, Esther Leslie, Yve Lomax, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Robin Mackay, Marko M?etamm, Victor Mazin, Penny McCarthy, E. Elias Merhige, Forbes Morlock, Reza Negarestani, Hayley Newman, Dany Nobus, Haralampi G. Oroschakoff, John W. Phillips, Cesare Pietroiusti. Jeanne Randolph, Antonio Santos, Javier Santos, Naomi Segal, Roy Sellars, Blake Stimson, Thomson & Craighead, Irene De Vico Fallani, Rodrigo Villas, Nina Wakeford, Sarah Wood
