Fatima Hellberg
Tuesday 4 February 2014
7pm

What marks off the “self” is method; it has no other source than ourselves: it is when we really employ method that we really begin to exist. As long as one employs method only on symbols one remains within the limits of a sort of game.
Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy, 1929-30

Why Simone Weil? Why do so many of my notes return to Weil – French philosopher, mystic, political activist and ‘most radical philosopher of sadness’. There are many reasons but above all, there are few thinkers as suitable for a lecture on method: for Weil, both self and world are constituted only through informed action upon the world. This is a talk that grapples with conditions of self-representation and where it meets method, and co-option – of how through a discussion on persona, interiority and identification, we might be able to get closer and break through some of the staged processes and shared neuroses that shape the conditions for making and showing work.

The evening will move across moving image and text: drawing on the writings of Simone Weil; the work of pioneering Los Angelean video artist Cynthia Maughan; and the reprise, effects and doubles of Brice Dellsperger.

Fatima Hellberg is a London based curator and writer. She is curator of Cubitt Gallery and associate curator of Electra. She has curated projects in the UK and internationally with exhibitions and projects at amongst others: Tate Modern, London; Badischer Kunsteverein, Karlsruhe; ICA, London; Malmö Konsthall and the South London Gallery. She writes for Frieze, Afterall Journal and various independent publications.