David Cross & Jem Noble – PERFORMING MOBILITIES http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net Mon, 04 Jul 2016 10:43:24 +0000 en-AU hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.2 http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net/wp-content/uploads/webFiles/cropped-PM_ico_02-32x32.jpg David Cross & Jem Noble – PERFORMING MOBILITIES http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net 32 32 HOUSE OF WISDOM http://performingmobilities.mickdouglas.net/symposium/traces_gallery/house-of-wisdom/ Wed, 29 Jul 2015 00:22:38 +0000 http://2015.performingmobilities.net/?post_type=traces_gallery&p=881 In 1258, one of the most extraordinary cultural and scientific experiments came to a sudden and highly destructive end. Mongol raiders, laying siege to Baghdad, set about systematically destroying the incredible archive of research and scholarship that had come to make up the House of Wisdom. Operating for nearly half a millennium, the House of Wisdom was an Islamic research centre devoted to ideas of self-improvement through the arts, sciences, and humanities – where ‘self’ was understood in non-atomistic terms: as culture propagating its own growth and refinement for the good of all.

Ideas of self-improvement implicit in the activities of the House of Wisdom are today manifest in different forms. While scholarship is still a cornerstone of knowledge accumulation and dissemination, other non-cerebral activities have become central to our contemporary sense of self-improvement. Physical and psychological wellbeing and social connectivity are seen as fundamental components of today’s individual, no longer defined through modernity’s ideal of ‘well-roundedness’, but ever unfinished in a milieu of urgent specialisation and ‘life-long learning’ for competitive advantage.

Taking the House of Wisdom as inspiration, artists Jem Noble (Vancouver/Melbourne) and David Cross (Melbourne) stage a new manifestation of this intellectual hothouse. As a project developed under the auspices of Performing Mobilities, the artists instigate a new House that interrogates what self-improvement can mean in our time. The artists working with an invited group of 15 collaborators/participants will collectively build a temporary House of Wisdom in Melbourne. Through lectures, art making, performances, and critical reflection, House of Wisdom will attempt to build a centre for the study of self-improvement.

WATCH VIDEO

]]> In 1258, one of the most extraordinary cultural and scientific experiments came to a sudden and highly destructive end. Mongol raiders, laying siege to Baghdad, set about systematically destroying the incredible archive of research and scholarship that had come to make up the House of Wisdom. Operating for nearly half a millennium, the House of Wisdom was an Islamic research centre devoted to ideas of self-improvement through the arts, sciences, and humanities – where ‘self’ was understood in non-atomistic terms: as culture propagating its own growth and refinement for the good of all.

Ideas of self-improvement implicit in the activities of the House of Wisdom are today manifest in different forms. While scholarship is still a cornerstone of knowledge accumulation and dissemination, other non-cerebral activities have become central to our contemporary sense of self-improvement. Physical and psychological wellbeing and social connectivity are seen as fundamental components of today’s individual, no longer defined through modernity’s ideal of ‘well-roundedness’, but ever unfinished in a milieu of urgent specialisation and ‘life-long learning’ for competitive advantage.

Taking the House of Wisdom as inspiration, artists Jem Noble (Vancouver/Melbourne) and David Cross (Melbourne) stage a new manifestation of this intellectual hothouse. As a project developed under the auspices of Performing Mobilities, the artists instigate a new House that interrogates what self-improvement can mean in our time. The artists working with an invited group of 15 collaborators/participants will collectively build a temporary House of Wisdom in Melbourne. Through lectures, art making, performances, and critical reflection, House of Wisdom will attempt to build a centre for the study of self-improvement.

WATCH VIDEO

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