Plague of Diagrams

About

"How many of these rough political rats are there around us? How many of them break things they don’t understand? How many of these rats simplify? How many of them have built such homogeneous, cruel systems upon the horror of disorder and noise?" Michel Serres, The Parasite

"The plague is met by order; its function is to sort out every possible confusion." Michel Foucault,Discipline & Punish

The event explores diagrams as actual/virtual machines that while taking material form and indexing existing relations and objects, point to other arrangements. As Gilles Châtelet declared, diagrams are gestures that invite other gestures. This is a vision of diagrams as abstract machines activated through performance or thought; a notion of diagrams as relays that connect or traverse different times and spaces. It is a conception of diagrams as critical and logical exploratory devices that, in presenting what is not apparent or visible—real abstractions, potential modes of being, hidden relations—paradoxically depend on the register of the imaginary and the inventive production of images, figures and gestures.

Since the Enlightenment, when diagrams facilitated scientific and statistical breakthroughs, to cybernetic research of the twentieth century, to the algorithmic devices that govern relations and economies today, diagrams have extended and organised human culture. While diagrams have proliferated we can draw a distinction between diagrams that index and deliver knowledge, and diagrams that pose problems and facilitate thought as an exploratory process. Plague of Diagrams addresses not just the critical and organisational functions of diagrams but the art of diagramming too, while taking account of the reductive, controlling or ideological use of diagrams.

Plague of Diagrams is organised by David Burrows and Dean Kenning in collaboration with Ami Clarke, Andrew Conio, John Cussans and David Osbaldeston. The collaboration has developed out of discussions and events staged by the Diagram Research Use and Generation Group (DRUGG).

Contributors

Rachel Cattle & Jenna Collins, Neil Chapman & Gillian Wylde, Ami Clarke, Andrew Conio, John Cussans, David Burrows, Benedict Drew, English Heretic, Nikolaus Gansterer, Joey Holder, Dean Kenning, Christoph Lueder, Stine Llungdalh, Adelheid Mers, Sharon Morris, Mike Nelson, David Osbaldeston, Plastique Fantastique, Patricia Reed, John Russell, Erica Scourti, Andy Sharp, Kamini Vellodi, Martin Westwood and Carey Young.

Programme

Please note this is an exhibition and entry is with Day Membership. The events listed below will take place within the exhibition space at the times stated below. Audience members are free to come and go during these times, however capacity is limited so please arrive on time for events.

Thursday 20 Aug     

• Exhibition Preview, 6 – 10pm     
  Featuring performances from 7:30 onwards by: Plastique Fantastique, John Russell, John Cussans, English Heretic, Ami Clarke, Rachel Cattle & Jenna Collins

Friday 21 Aug         

• Exhibition open, 11am – 6pm
• DRUGG (Diagram, Research, Use & Generation Group) present: Rat’s Nest Ratiocinations diagramming workshop, 2 – 6pm

Saturday 22 Aug      

• Exhibition open, 11am – 6pm
• Symposium (details below), 11:15 – 6pm

Sunday 23 Aug         

Exhibition open, 11am – 6pm