6th July 2018
FORMAT Issue 8, organised and hosted by Shumon Basar
FORMAT is a ‘live magazine’ looking at the shapes that discourse takes. The eighth issue takes place at the AA in Summer 2018, and runs from July 4 to July 13. Open to the public, and free of charge, FORMAT No.8 focuses on ‘Self Format.’ Is the ‘individual’ being reinvented and redefined in our age of data capitalism? How much intimacy can be surrendered to surveillance? Is the opposite of the individual still the ‘crowd,’ or, something else? And, would you mind being cloned? Invited guests share their Self Formats from the worlds of art, design, literature, theory, media and more.
Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist continue their exploration of ‘The Extreme Present’ into its impacts on individuals and crowds: is one’s sense of self diluted by plastering the Internet with as much information as possible? Is the frantic attempt to reverse that futile? Can you perceive yourself authentically anymore? Does everyone on earth feel the same way as you?
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist, visual artist and designer. He has published fourteen novels, a collection of short stories, seven nonfiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. Coupland’s novels and visual work synthesize high and low culture, web technology, religion, and changes in human existence caused by modern technologies. In 1991 he published his first novel, Generation X, which eventually became an international bestseller. Defining a generation with his debut, Coupland has ever since been capturing the Zeitgeist like no other.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 300 shows. Obrist’s recent publications include Somewhere Totally Else; Lives of Artists, Lives of Architects; Ways of Curating; A Brief History of Curating; Do It: The Compendium; and The Age of Earthquakes with Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar.
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